I would consider myself a good student. Most days, I just listened and took notes in class. I had good grades. I wasn’t known to cause a problem.
I was in High school, in American History class, and we were reading through pages of the text. To be honest, I was barely paying attention because I had studied American History every single year from first grade until that day. I knew the facts forward and back. Living in Philadelphia, I was steeped in American History. I had visited every monument on school trips.
We got to a page that talked about slavery and I perked up because I thought that we were about to discuss some of the achievements of Black people. To my surprise, it was maybe two paragraphs. I kept flipping the page to make sure I didn’t miss something. The teacher didn’t blink. He kept moving ahead. I frantically flipped through the rest of the pages in the textbook.
There was nothing about Harriet Tubman, a black woman who freed thousands of slaves through the Underground Railroad traveling from the South to Philadelphia and eventually to Canada. There was nothing about Benjamin Banneker, a prominent scientist and inventor. No mention of Phillis Wheatley, who rose to fame as a Poet despite being enslaved.
Something bubbled up in me and I slammed my hand on the book. The room was quiet. I looked at my teacher and said, “Two paragraphs. All black people get in American History is two paragraphs.”
The teacher was stunned and I felt other students staring at me. The teacher stammered, “That’s what is in the book.”
He tried to move forward, but something made me unable to let it go. I felt visceral anger. I felt minimized. I challenged, “I refuse to turn the page until we talk more about the accomplishments of Black people in American History.”
Other students realized what was happening and they started to agree with me. The teacher saw he was potentially going to lose his class. He tried to calm us down, but I had stoked the fire. Several other black students also questioned why there wasn’t more representation. It quickly devolved into a battle of wills until the teacher turned bright red.
It ended with us being told to leave the class, which we did. But, I vowed to do it the next day if we didn’t discuss more about the contributions of Black people to American History.
The next day when I arrived at the class, the teacher told us we had a new assignment. He assigned the entire class to write papers on famous contributions of Black people to American History. We would cover what the book hadn’t covered so the whole class could learn what the book had neglected to tell us. I smiled and nodded my head. I had won that one fight.
A couple of years later they announced that the school was going to have a Black History course that students could take for credit. Many Black students signed up for the class thinking it was going to be an easy A on their report card. I had satisfied my history requirement so I was unable to take it.
I remember sitting at a lunch table when the class ended and students walking towards the table looking disillusioned. I asked what was wrong? A student looked at me and said, “I took this Black History Class expecting to know everything, but I’m struggling. I’m a Black person, but I don’t know most of what we are studying.”
It might sound strange, but it is very true that Black children and adults have been starved of their own history. It’s bad enough to lose the connection to your culture of origin, but to not even know the history of your people in your own country. The reason for the disconnection isn’t just because it wasn’t taught, but because it was intentionally erased.
For many Black people, their descendants were brought to America by means of slavery. They don’t know what country their family originated from in Africa unlike families that came through Ellis Island where it was recorded. Their family members were renamed, split up and sold from plantation to plantation with no way of knowing where they even ended up when they died because they may have just been unceremoniously buried.
There is little connection to African culture, but instead Black people must adopt a version of American culture that they have made their own.
The achievements of enslaved people were often taken credit for by others, not recorded or deliberately hidden from other Black people.
I have done my own research trying to find information and make connections to understand the stories of African History and Black History that weren’t taught to me. I am well-versed in American History. I even studied European History. But, I know little of my own History beyond what I was able to find on my own through books and by visiting museums.
For years, it was an obsession because I wanted to know and understand where I came from and what type of people birthed me. I wanted to understand their customs and their beliefs. I wanted a connection to my past. But, many times, all I found was a dead-end as if someone had ripped the pages from the book of my humanity.
Why would someone not want people to know their history? When you know your history, you have an inner-knowing, confidence and sense of unity because you come from a people that embrace your commonality and you feel proud to model yourself after their achievements. If you don’t know your history, you are open to interpretation and people can write whatever they want on you because you can’t refute it with facts. It’s cultural gas-lighting.
But, despite all of that, every year during the shortest month of the year, I witness Black people sharing the facts they can find about ancestors and displaying pride in the things we have overcome and recognizing our collective achievements. Because that is what resilient people do.
We continue to make history.
This time, thanks to the internet, it won’t be erased for future generations.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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