The Status of Black History in U.S Classes
As most know, Black History Month is celebrated in the chilly month of February. For some people, this is a fairly active month of respecting and reflecting on the people that have helped form the country that we live in today. However, our knowledge on peoples that have had a major effect on the advancement of African-Americans usually lands on prominent figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. People that held a great deal of influence during the Civil Rights movement.
In its own right, knowledge on the Civil Rights movement is great and all but it doesn’t cover the totality of black history. Morgan Freeman once made the quote: “I don’t want Black History Month. Black history is American history.” I believe that is the kind of quote that one should contemplate on a bit. Black history should be treated like American history because that’s what it is. However, that’s not always the case. Often, black history and black historical figures is a topic that is breezed over casually without fully comprehending the effect that event or person may have held. And that’s not just in classrooms. The United States as a country has failed to truly respect the legacy African Americans, who had an entire month dedicated to them ninety-six years ago.
In order to preserve black history in schools and being able to maintain the importance of black history in the United States today, maybe black history should be taken up as an elective in school. That way, people who are interested in learning black history should be able to get further depth on the subject instead of being confined to only learning what's taught in regular high school history classes. Being on the same page as local school level, listening to the school announcements in the morning, they mention stuff about "on this day in history". It shouldn't be that hard to find an African man or woman that had been an influence to what is known as the current America we live in, yet still remain unrecognized for their efforts.
Before even adding Black history as an elective, teachers and other administrators higher up the ladder should try to add more black history into the curriculum anyways. They should stop limiting to names such as just Harriet Tubman for the Underground Railroad or just MLK and Malcolm X for the Civil Rights movement. Instead, they could learn about Claudette Calvin, a 15-year-old African American who didn't give up her seat on the bus before Rosa Parks. History shouldn't only be limited to learning from a book or a movie. If black history is American history, then we're not learning history the right way.
There's much more to black history then most would admit. Especially American black history goes back for centuries and sometimes it might make people uncomfortable, but that's exactly why we should learn it. Those events happen in the should be acknowledged properly. That's why we should stop turning Black History Month into just a name and start actually doing something during the month to show that we still recognize those people till this day.
