Book cover courtesy of Judson Press

“If a race has no history, if it has no worth-while tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”[i]

— Carter G. Woodson, The Journal of Negro History, April 1926

Christian tradition tells us that the Gospel of Luke is the disciple’s offering of an “orderly account” of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection. Luke, the physician, said many compiled their narratives as they related to the Savior, and he wanted to ensure that his theological, historical, and literary view was preserved and shared — not silenced. In the gospel’s prologue, Luke makes clear he was not a spectator of his reports, but he leaned on reliable testimonies of eyewitnesses and credible written sources to tell his story (Luke 1:1-4).

Just as Luke felt compelled to offer a trustworthy narrative of his experience with Christ, so did Carter G. Woodson as it related to the rich history of African Americans. The founding of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (formerly the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History) became Woodson’s offering. The organization set the agenda and ensuing dialogue for the national observance of Black History Month. To tell an honest and steadfast story, there remains an urgency to publicly proclaim and celebrate Black people’s achievements, challenges, and triumphs not only in Black History Month but throughout the year.

At a minimum, Black History Month must be observed and nationally supported, especially at this moment when unabashed racism has reared its head, and white supremacist tentacles are trying to destroy the accomplishments and contributions of African Americans. Ideally, Black History should be recognized throughout the year; however, books on African Americans are currently being banned, and history is being rewritten, with slavery becoming a bastardized version of a work-for-hire program that somehow elevates the enslaved to their next coveted position. Teachers and professors are being silenced from speaking the truth, leaving a generation of young people clueless about their history, all in an effort to rewind the clock on the hard-fought advancements of the Civil Rights Movement.

Origin stories have merit, and the accounts have value and should be understood and shared. The nation continues to witness ongoing and intentional historical revisionism, with dedicated efforts to miseducate and blur the line between what we know to be truth and what is political convenience. One can only imagine if the horrific events of January 6, 2021, can be so easily and shamelessly distorted that the magnitude of how Black stories are muted and history rewritten must be truly unimaginable. Like Luke, the only Gentile to write in the New Testament, African Americans, those whose ancestors endured the whip and whose progeny are still fighting for equal rights, want an accurate accounting of their experiences: the pains and joys, the failures and triumphs, the struggles and successes — their history.

Black History Month and Beyond

The need for Black History Month remains because the story of Black people is an American tale. According to Marvin A. McMickle, former president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, who has taught and written extensively about African Americans, “Black history is integral to American history.” McMickle also wrote, “You cannot fully understand this country without understanding the Black experience of oppression and achievement.”[ii] Award-winning journalist Gary Younge, author of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream, said, “There is no American history without Black history, and until that history is adequately and honestly told, there will be a need to set aside time and space to engage it.”[iii]

Woodson understood that America’s history was linked to the fundamental Black experience. He also understood the propensity of European American historians, educators, and politicians to whitewash the past, even while engaging in blatant cultural appropriation. The struggle, though, continues. After years of advocacy to secure African ancestral history courses in public schools and higher places of learning, progress is now under fire.

Celebrating Black History Month is an earnest attempt to set the record straight and correct strategic miseducation by telling the true stories of Black offerings to America’s history and encouraging the integration of Black history into the teaching of American history. Boykin Sanders, distinguished professor of New Testament Studies and Greek at Virginia Union University’s School of Theology, says, “We need to observe Black History Month to reinforce its original intention — to remind others and ourselves of our existence and that European narratives about us are more about Europeans than about our histories, cultures, and traditions.”[iv] (Like Woodson, Sanders studied at Harvard, earning an MA and PhD.) Sanders shares that, in the spirit of the ancestors, he has chosen to teach at the Black seminary since 1982. “I reasoned,” he writes in Blowing the Trumpet in Open Court, “that I had but one life to live, and I had to spend it with the oppressed in the service of liberation.” Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois, wrote in a sermon found in his classic book What Makes You So Strong, a compilation of his sermons:

No other race was brought to this country in chains. No other race had laws passed, making it a crime to teach them how to read. No other race had skin color as the determining factor of their servitude and their employability. No other race was hounded and haunted when they want to be free. No other race was physically mutilated to identify them as property, not people. No other race was lied to and lied on like the African race. No other race had its names taken away in addition to its language and music. No other race was denied more and deprived of more, treated as badly, and treated as less than human. No other race was treated like the Africans were treated, and yet no other race has done so much after starting out with so little, defying all the odds and breaking all the records.[v]

James Henry Harris, a Virginia Union University (VUU) seminary professor and author of several books including N: My Encounter with Racism and the Forbidden Word in an American Classic, said Black History Month is critical “to avoid the tragic errors of past evils.”

American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA), my denomination, agreed that “Racial hatred, bias, systemic racism, white supremacy, and inequitable opportunity are deeply rooted in our systems of education, health care [sic], economics, government, and faith traditions, permeating all aspects of individual, community, and corporate life. Together, we determined as a denomination, we must be willing to respond appropriately.”[vi] To that end, ABCUSA established an Anti-Racism Task Force in November 2020, and it is my hope other faith communities will follow the denomination’s lead.