Alveena Nadeem
Editor Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglass. Your teacher, your neighbor and your friend.
Black heroes are all around us. To celebrate their past, present and future, the U.S. marks every February as African-American History Month. But how exactly do you “celebrate” a group of people if you are not part of them?
You learn about them--and why we are all celebrating.
“Black History Month gives people of all races an opportunity to learn things about black culture and black people that they didn’t know about. We can take these examples of what we as African-Americans have accomplished in the past and continue to build on that to forge a better future for all races,” junior Nakaiya Russell said.
DHS library and classrooms are stacked with books written by and about Black Americans. In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou remembers her life of battling racism and trauma. The Hate U Give is a young adult novel about a black teenager demanding justice against racial profiling. And if you prefer something more visual, Marvel superhero comics about Black Panther--king of a fictional African kingdom, Wakanda--is painted with African and African-American cultures.
But if graphic novels are not eye-appealing enough, the screen has plenty of resources.
From rapper and activist Killer Mike breaking down current racial issues in America during Trigger Warning to the Oscar nominated documentary The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson showing the life of Marsha P. Johnson, a world-changing LGBTQ+ activist, Netflix is full of movies and shows that explore the lives of black heroes and the social issues they face. Switching out a night of Stranger Things with watching 13th is a fun yet eye-opening way to learn about African-American history.
Yet movies and shows need free time, and not everyone has enough. For those busy bees, turning on a podcast while solving math equations makes both doing homework and honoring Black History Month more productive.
NPR journalists unravel controversial racial issues--like racist beauty standards or how racial differences shape friendships--in Code Switch. During Affirm, licensed professional counselor Davia Roberts talks about mental health issues women of color usually face. And each Teaching Hard History episode discusses a different part of the U.S. history of racial discrimination against African-Americans: uncomfortable yet necessary to learn about.
Though African-American History month is only February, learning about the history of Black America is important year-long. Because black heroes do not just live in February. They live in our past, present and future--all around us.
Photo courtesy Ron Ridgon
The founder of African-American History Month and the second African-American to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard, Dr. Carter G. Woodson and The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History dedicated a week in February "Negro History Week." This was later lengthened to include the entire month of February and recognized as a national holiday in 1976.
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