Page 18
Black History Month
O PINION
February 10, 2016
Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views of the
Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and
story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com.
Black History Month and the Pursuit of Justice
A time to
educate and
inspire
m arC h. m Orial
Those who have no
record of what their
forebears have accom-
plished lose the inspi-
ration which comes
from the teaching of
biography and history.
– Carter G. Woodson
Carter G. Woodson was born
in Virginia, 10 years after the fall
of the Confederacy. Working as
a sharecropper and a miner, he
rarely had time to attend school
by
until the age of 20. He would de-
vote the rest of his life to study,
becoming known as “The Father
of African-American History.”
Through his studies, Wood-
son found that African-Ameri-
can contributions to his-
tory “were overlooked,
ignored, and even sup-
pressed by the writers of
history textbooks and the
teachers who use them.”
He concluded that racial
prejudice “is merely the
logical result of tradition, the
inevitable outcome of thorough
instruction to the effect that the
Negro has never contributed
anything to the progress of man-
kind.”
Black History Month, which
Woodson founded as Negro His-
tory Week in 1926, was his effort
to combat that tradition. Chosen
to coincide with the birthdays of
Abraham Lincoln and Frederick
Douglas, considered heroes by
most black Americans, the sec-
ond week in February was set
aside to celebrate black history.
The irst year, education ofi-
cials of only three states and two
cities recognized the event, but
by 1929 it was being promot-
ed in nearly every state in the
nation. In 1970, black students
at Kent State University cele-
brated the irst unoficial Black
History Month and in 1976,
President Gerald Ford oficially
recognized the event as an op-
portunity to honor the too-often
neglected accomplishments of
black Americans in every area of
endeavor throughout our history.
In the intervening 40 years,
we’ve seen remarkable prog-
ress in racial justice, and also
heartbreaking setbacks. There
are some in our own community
who feel Black History Month is
unnecessary – as there were in
Woodson’s own day. And their
essential point is valid: Black
history is American History, and
its teaching should not be rele-
gated to one month per year. But
that isn’t the point of Black His-
tory Month.
The American Dream remains
perilously out of reach for many
people of color. The National
Urban League Equality Index,
a comprehensive comparison
of Black America’s status in the
areas of economics, health, edu-
cation, social justice and civic en-
gagement, stands at 72.2 percent.
Racial disparity won’t disap-
pear if we simply ignore it. Jus-
tice will not be achieved unless
we actively seek it out. Black
History Month not only serves
as a reminder of what our for-
bearers have achieved, but as an
inspiration for the journey that
remains before us.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive oficer of the
National Urban League.
Healing Racial Wounds and Creating Opportunity
This nation
needs to
transform
g ail C. C hrisTOPher
Fifty years ago, the
Civil Rights Movement
led to a series of laws ban-
ning public discrimina-
tion. African Americans were
no longer barred from certain
restaurants, some schools were
integrated and fair housing
laws created more living op-
tions.
But today, it’s clear that
court rulings and legislation
didn’t change the root cause
of conscious and unconscious
bias - the widespread belief in
racial hierarchy still exists.
As a nation, we didn’t un-
derstand the power of this be-
lief, this misguided notion that
some people are either superior
or inferior because of the color
of their skin.
This bias manifests in many
ways. Unarmed men and wom-
en are killed by police and
civilians, the justice system
seems tilted toward whites, and
there remains unequal treat-
ment for children and adults
when it comes to health, edu-
cation, housing and employ-
ment. David R. Williams, a
sociology professor at Harvard
University, cites studies show-
ing that when whites, blacks
and Hispanics visited hospi-
by
tal emergency rooms with the
same ailment, white patients
received pain medication more
frequently than people of color.
Does that make
the physicians rac-
ist?
That may not be
the case. With the
advancements
in
neuroscience,
we
now know much more about
the power of the mind. We un-
derstand that unconscious be-
liefs are deeply held, that cen-
turies of this belief system have
unconsciously shaped how
some of us respond. But now,
21st century technology - You-
Tube, cell phones, dashboard
cameras, body cameras - are
leveraged to shape new beliefs
about our humanity. They are
capturing and exposing viv-
id samples of people of color
abused and dehumanized. We
must move beyond the absurd
notion that some people have
more value than others.
What’s promising is that re-
cent polling data demonstrates
a palpable desire for a positive
change in how we view one
another and how we shape our
society to relect the inherent
value of all people. We have
carried the burden and the
weight of this mythology of a
hierarchy of human value, al-
lowing it to weigh our country
down for centuries. We must
jettison that belief and move
forward with the truth of our
equal values as a human fam-
ily.
It’s signiicant that a poll-
ing analysis conducted by the
W.K. Kellogg Foundation in
conjunction the Northeastern
University School of Journal-
ism has found that a majority
of whites now acknowledge
that racism still exists, and
that it creates bias in structures
such as the criminal justice
system. Furthermore, a major-
ity of Americans believe more
process. This broad coalition
seeks to move the nation be-
yond dialogues about race and
ethnicity to unearthing historic
and contemporary patterns that
are barriers to success, healing
those wounds and creating op-
portunities for all children.
Speciically, the effort will
prioritize inclusive, commu-
nity-based healing activities
and policy design that seek to
change collective communi-
ty narratives and broaden the
What’s promising is that recent
polling data demonstrates a
palpable desire for a positive change
in how we view one another and how
we shape our society to relect the
inherent value of all people.
needs to be done to eliminate
racism. In a poll last year, 53
percent of whites said more
changes needed to be made to
give blacks equal rights with
whites, up from just 39 percent
a year earlier.
Those indings underscore
that now is the time for the Truth
Racial Healing and Transfor-
mation process, which the Kel-
logg Foundation launched on
Jan. 28. More than 70 diverse
organizations and individu-
als ranging from the National
Civic League to the YWCA to
the NAACP are partners in the
understanding that Americans
have for their diverse experi-
ences. Participants in the pro-
cess will assemble national
and local commissions that
will hold public forums on the
consequences of racial inequi-
ty and work toward mobilizing
systems and structures to cre-
ate more equitable opportuni-
ties. In the forums, we will also
discuss racial hierarchy and
how best to dismantle it.
Clearly, there must be broad-
er knowledge of the harm that
comes from the devaluation and
from the structures of inequal-
ity. They create physical harm,
they create mental and emotion-
al harm, and when there’s harm,
healing is needed.
When an unarmed black
person is killed, I have a bodi-
ly reaction to that tragedy. I
relive losses of my own, such
as when I was a teenager in
Cleveland. My irst cousin
was shot and killed by a white
thrill-seeker in our segregated
neighborhood. I recall that we
buried her that week, while he
enlisted in the Navy and left
the city. It was the irst funeral
I ever attended. Despite all the
joyful moments my cousin and
I shared growing up together,
my only lasting recollection is
of her body lying in that casket.
All of us must become more
cognizant of the cost of vio-
lence and the harm. We must
be willing to invest in the pro-
cesses that help to bring about
healing.
Other truth and reconcilia-
tion efforts around the world
aim to reconcile. But Ameri-
ca’s genesis is this hierarchy.
And so we don’t have to come
back, we don’t need to recon-
cile, this nation needs to trans-
form. The Truth Racial Healing
and Transformation process
will lead this transformation
and chart that course.
Gail C. Christopher is vice
president of the Truth Racial
Healing and Transformation
process and a senior advisor at
the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.