WASHINGTON, D.C. -- I have been in search of my people's role in American and world history most of my life. I have had to look hard because, for the most part, it's not in the American history books, at least not the truth of it. When it is there, it's usually in some sanitized, watered-down version that I just know is not real.
There are lots of traces of the truth hidden along the Eastern Seaboard and all over the country. It's America's history, not just mine. Much of it is hidden in plain sight all over the world, for that matter.
Last week, I decided to visit our nation's capital to better understand, conceptualize and articulate the relevance and importance of this year's celebration of Black History Month.
I wanted to be here in Washington during President George Bush's State of the Union address, and for the announcement of the Smithsonian Institution's decision on whether a comprehensive African-American history museum would be built on the National Mall, or would be shoved aside, hidden again in some easily forgotten, never-traveled corner.
I had been feeling a little torn, ambivalent about the growing controversy regarding the relevance of Black History Month. I can see both sides of the argument: to preserve the tradition, or to let it go as an anachronistic vestige of a time when everything in America was segregated. I had begun to think that maybe it was time to move on.
The observance of Black History Day was created in 1926 by Harvard history professor Carter G. Woodson, who was intent on advancing knowledge of black Americans' role in America. It was expanded 50 years later to encompass the wider role of black participation in the development of America.
But in the 80th anniversary year of what has become Black History Month, a long-standing debate has reawakened, with some African-Americans as well as many others questioning its pertinence in the 21st century.
I had to ask myself, is it time to put all this behind us?
Hundreds of Niagarans fought in the Civil War on battlefields like Gettysburg and Manassas, both within eight hours of Niagara Falls. And thousands of slaves escaped to Canada, passing right through our back yards, many receiving help here until it was safe to cross the border.
In little more than eight hours, you can make the pleasant drive from Terrapin Point, the northernmost terminus of the Underground Railroad, all the way to the Washington Monument. From there, you can take a short stroll across the National Mall and stand right in front of the Lincoln Memorial, in the exact same spot where Dr. Martin Luther King heroically delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech, on Aug. 28, 1963.
There are several ways to get there from here, but I am always curious to know which way escaped slaves came up here from the Deep South on their way to Canada, or Canaan, as it was often referred to by those brave souls who chose to live free rather than die slowly as slaves. Contrary to much of what has been taught in the classroom history books for generations, slaves were constantly struggling to be free, trying to escape.
I am also interested in retracing the routes my father and his generation followed during the Great Migration in the late '20s and just after the Second World War, when hundreds of thousands of black men and women fled the Jim Crow South in search of jobs in the industrial Northeast. Many landed on the Niagara Frontier.
So much history was lost during slavery because the captured did not speak English, Spanish or Portuguese, the most common languages of their captors. Even if they could have written about their experiences (slaves were kept illiterate by law), leaving a trail for historians to follow later, when would they have had the time to write, and where would the resources to do it have come from?
Even the more recent history of black and white immigrants alike is being lost, simply because so many from that generation are passing on without passing along their life experiences. Why are we not sitting down with our elders and writing down their stories, preserving their legacies?
A new oral history project is desperately needed to capture those stories, lest they be lost forever. In cities like Niagara Falls, the stories of how our people lived together successfully in highly diverse neighborhoods should be recorded for future historical analysis. Let's not treat our history the same way we have treated so many of our historically important buildings and landmarks, demolishing them and replacing them with emptiness.
Perhaps some of the most valuable evidence of what daily life was like for the slaves was recorded during the Depression. In the 1930s, the Federal Writers' Project created what Belinda Hurmence calls a "monumental trove."
Hurmence is editor of a collection of excerpts from the Virginia entries, entitled "We Lived in a Little Cabin in the Yard." The information was collected using a simple list of questions. Although few of the states participated in the project, it does give us more than we would have had otherwise.
From the Washington Monument, turn and face the Smithsonian Institution. Its board of regents voted last week, after more than 20 years of debate and contention, to build the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
The museum's founding director, Lonnie G. Bunch, told the Washington Post, "I am delighted that this museum, which is the product of the vision, creativity and hopes of many people and many generations, finally has a home."
Echoing Bunch's enthusiasm, Walter E. Massey, president of Morehouse College and a Smithsonian Regent, pointed out that placing the African-American experience in the proper context is important. He noted, "We see it in the mainstream of American history."
Put American history and African-American history together? That's a novel approach!
If we get it right, there may, one day in the not-so-distant future, no longer be a need for it, but until then we must continue to support and celebrate Black History Month.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Feb. 7 2006 |