RACISM is for dummies.
Black History Month is here, so study it well because history can repeat itself
By Native Sun News Today Editorial Board
nativesunnews.today Do you think the students now celebrating Black History Month are getting the full and true story of the history of Black Americans? Are they being taught that Africans were rounded up like cattle, taken to ports of departure in chains, put on wooden ships, and shipped across the ocean to America to be sold as slaves? Do they know that men and women were branded as if they were animals so that they could be tracked down and identified if they ever tried to run away from the slave holders? Are they taught that the first and third presidents of the United States were slave owners and that the third president, Thomas Jefferson, had a child with one of his black slave women? They should also know that many runaway slaves sought refuge among the different Indian tribes and were taken in by the tribes. A book called “The Black Seminoles of Florida” tells the story of one such tribe that welcomed the former slaves. The children will surely be taught about Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, and the Black Olympic medal winners that stood on the podium at the Mexico Olympics and raised their black gloved fists above their heads to protest racism in America. There was James Baldwin his essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in mid-20th-century America, and their inevitable if un-nameable tensions. Some Baldwin essays are book-length, for instance The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976). His writing shook the white establishment and helped shape the road to civil rights. Frederick Douglass (1818-95) was a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator. Born a slave, Douglass escaped at age 20 and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery activist. His three autobiographies are considered important works of the slave narrative tradition as well as classics of American autobiography. Douglass’ work as a reformer ranged from his abolitionist activities in the early 1840s to his attacks on Jim Crow and lynching in the 1890s. For 16 years he edited an influential black newspaper and achieved international fame as an inspiring and persuasive speaker and writer. In thousands of speeches and editorials, he levied a powerful indictment against slavery and racism, provided an indomitable voice of hope for his people, embraced antislavery politics and preached his own brand of American ideals. The struggles for racial justice and equality for Black, Mexican and Indian minorities is still ongoing. A new chapter in American Indian history is about to be written in North Dakota and America and President Donald Trump don’t even know it yet. It is important for Native American children to learn about Black History because the enslavement and mistreatment of African Americans parallels that of the Indian people and the Black fight for human and civil rights helped to bring about changes on the Indian reservations as well. The actions of a US President can and does impact the future of a people. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation set in motion the actions that freed the slaves and the stroke of a presidential pen took millions of acres of land from the Indian people and that same pen of Abraham Lincoln that freed the slaves also allowed Minnesota to hang 33 Dakota men in the largest mass hanging in American history. Study Black History well because history does have a tendency to repeat itself.
Find more news and opinion on the Native Sun News Today website: Black History Month is here, so study it well because history can repeat itself (Contact the Editorial Board of Native Sun News Today at editor@nsweekly.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
Join the Conversation
