r « iin
m o n n w r a oeii width nisiory special supplement to:
The Seattle M E D IU M , Tacoma True Citizen, The Seattle Facts, Showcase,
The Portland Observer, Portland/Vancouver Skanner
HISTORY MEANS
73 ■
JE
—
A PLACE IN THE SUN
_____ By Karl Holtfield_____
ux sit. Let us begin
our salute to Black
History Month with
this invocation
(whatever our creed). Lux
sit— let there be light.
It seems that the light of
learning is puncturing the
eclipse which has overhung
Blacks— excluding their past
and present from M ankind’s
story— History.
This is benchmarked by
several happenings— the rise
of Black African nations as
L
independent countries, the
Black Revolution in the
United States and recent
scientific acknowledgements
that Africa has been the
M other to Mankind. W ho
can hate his cradle?
The famous British sci
entist, Dr. Louis Leakey, con
tended that the ancestor of
modem m an’s ancestor
(homo habilis from whom
homo sapiens is descended)
originated in the northern
gamelands of Tanzania. O f
course that was over two mil
lion years ago.
Meantime, Mankind
spread all over.
Were we to consider
only the past 2,000 years of
history we would find that
Blacks are judged only by the
last 400 years starting when
Europeans found economic
advantage in Black slavery.
But this is a story too well
known to all.
W hat is often not real
ized is that no ethnic group
has a monopoly on technol
ogy. As the wheel of oppor
tunity turns, we can see dif
ferent views of the same
peoples.
Imagine the disdain of
ancient Egyptians to learn of
white savages painting them
selves blue in Europe's caves
when Egypt used the chariot,
the iron-tipped hoe and
spears, wrote on papyrus reed
and fostered mathematics.
It could compare today
to the amazement of those
who see Pygmies in their rain
forest habitat hunting ele
phant with spears.
As the world becomes
smaller due to speed of travel
and communications, cul
tural difference diminishes.
People of diverse inheritance
and background tend to ad
vance together, not always in
tandem nor at the same pace,
but at least the old ignorance
comes under scrutiny. And
like many viruses, it can’t
endure the light, the light of
learning. Lux sit. Let there be
light. Emancipate our share
of History as we take our place
in the sun.
TODAY YOU ARE MAKING HISTORY
ill Black history re
cord that the United
States, with what-
■
ever faults and vir
tues the extreme left and right
have attributed to it, seems to
have reached a decline in
social and economic barriers
for its native-born Afro-
Saxons?
Could it be that the suc
cess of the civil rights move
ment has curtailed the rise of
present and future leaders?
Perhaps it is mere token
ism that Black elected officials
have suddenly flowered all
over the nation, that corpo
rate America now has ac
cepted a significant bngade of
Black managers, that increas
ingly Black athletes saturate
the professional sports fields
commanding superlative
salaries.
But what about the mil
lions who still writhe under
the lack of opportunity and
W
injustice of generations past?
They have been called
the Black underclass.
Does the success of the
few forecast hope for the
many? Will American busi
ness rake up the gauntlet of
this current challenge of how
to stem the worsened condi
tions for the Black masses so
as to stabilize the conditions
for all Amencans irrespective
of color? W e think there is
cause for hope, especially
when we view the rise of
achievers like these.
Terence
erence said over
two thousand
years ago, “I bid
.■ him look into the
lives of men as though into
a mirror, and from others
to take an example for
himself."
T
Prominent Roman citizen
Terenrius Lucanus was so im
pressed with his African slave,
he gave the youth his name.
Thus Publius Terenrius Afer,
for African, was destined to
become one of Rome’s
greatest Latin stylists and
writers.
His works are known
mainly for the purity of his
o paraphrase the
language and the exception
famous ranging from
ally flawless verse. He is still
Black Terence to
studied throughout the world .......... , ■ English Lord C hes
twenty-two hundred years
terton to others, if the lessons of
later.
history aren’t learned they are
One from the Past
T
likely to be repeated. This is prob
ably one significant reason why
history is important to us. It has
an application to our ever living
present. It can affect our future.
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