Be Informed to Transform

We are mostly familiar with the repetitive facts that:

Ø  On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man which led to the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and the end of segregation on Montgomery buses.

Ø  Martin Luther King was a Civil Rights activist.

Ø  The Underground Railroad was the name of the escape system used by slaves to find safety in the North.

Ø  New Orleans, Louisiana is known as the birthplace of jazz.

Ø  Malcolm X was the first who taught the principle that “black is beautiful” and believed that self-reliance is the means to success.

Ø  Vanessa Williams was the first Black American chosen as Miss America.

But, do we really think about:

v  Why did Carter Woodson choose February as the month to celebrate black history?

v  Before it became Black History Month, what was the observance of Black History called?

v  What was the first year that Martin Luther King Day was observed?

v  Where did the first “sit-in” at a segregated lunch counter take place?

v  Why was there only one African American among the original NAACP executives?

v  Which constitutional amendment abolished slavery throughout the United States?

v  Which U.S. Supreme Court decision declared school segregation unconstitutional?

And that’s only to name a small amount of the knowledge that we as a nation lack.  We, as parents, have the obligation of educating our children.  It is obvious that we are failing that task as we see and speak to our children on a daily basis and realize that they don’t even know the basis on which the United States was founded.  Many people think about slavery and automatically get upset with white people.  However, if it were not for white people, slavery would probably still be going on today.  White people alongside phenomenal black people have led the United States beyond our wildest dreams.  In order to understand that, we would have to extensively gain knowledge on the topic.  It is nice to believe that the United States was always a place of freedom, but it is not reality.  Is there a reason why we are shielding our children from the truth? Are we afraid our children will take us back to the past? Do we think our children will become scornful from what they hear? Or do we not have enough knowledge on the topic of history to adequately educate our children? Whatever the case may be, we owe it to our children to teach them about the happenings of the past and help them understand that there is no reason to be upset.  Have we ever thought about how much stronger and wiser our children would be if we educated not only our children, but ourselves, on the topic of history??? We, as a nation, as a people, would have soooo much more power! However, we can never achieve greatness if we don’t even acknowledge our past.  We have to put more than just the future in perspective. We need to know where we came from in order to know where we don’t want to go. In honor of Black History Month, I challenge everyone to become a bit more educated on the topic of Black History and learn the whens, whats, whys, hows, and whos of Black History.   

LET'S BE INFORMED OF THE PAST IN ORDER TO TRANSFORM TO THE FUTURE!!!