Are we settling when it comes to our black history? Are we content with the 28 days in which limited aspects of our culture are presented to us and our children? Are we fine with the fact that many of our children don’t know much about black history other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream and Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a bus? Yes, there are stamps with Civil Rights leaders on them, commercials, and television specials but is that enough?
An opinion article by Kirsten West Savali of Clutch Magazine might cause you to really think about the way we look at our history and the way we allow it to be presented to us.
“Most of us don’t teach our children about Dr. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War or support of unions. We certainly don’t discuss how United States government agencies were found guilty for conspiring to assassinate him in 1999. Instead, we’ve become satisfied to let his legacy rest in ‘I Have a Dream.’ Many of us certainly don’t discuss Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier and Paul Robeson. What if our children knew that the most revered artists of a generation didn’t focus on ‘money, cars and hoes,’ they instead used their influence to speak out again injustice, regardless of who perpetuated it, and would have been caught dead before being found guilty of what Mr. Belafonte so eloquently described as ‘patriotic treason’?”
Read more at Clutch Magazine.
BMWK — Do you teach your children about our history or do you rely on television specials and their teachers during the month of February? Do you think teaching them about black history beyond Dr. King’s dream is important?