“A Celebration of Black History” was written by alumna Lorry A. Hester, who graduated in 1991 with a degree in political science.
Something inside so strong. This sentence refers to an inner passion that drives a person to achieve a goal. It’s the mechanism that causes a person to act or maybe even react to a certain situation. Fredrick Douglass, Shirley Chisholm, Malcolm X, Mary Mclean Bethune, Martin Luther King Jr., and the list continues of the African-Americans who had this mechanism. Some were actions from the passion to discover: Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful operation on the human heart; George Washington Carver gave us many new uses for the peanut and the sweet potatoe. Some of the actions were reactions to an undesirable situation: Rosa Parks and the Atlantic Bus System; A. Philip Randolf and the first Black Union. This passion can also be creator of an art: Langston Hughes, poet; Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, musician and composer. It’s the passion of Carter G. Woodson that makes it possible for African-Americans to celebrate our history and share it with all of America. He is the founder of the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History. Stemming from this, he is also the founder of the first Negro History Week.
Black History Month is a celebration and also an education. The celebration is for the survival of a race that has been suppressed for over 300 years. African-Americans have come a long way down the road and even though the road stretches much further than we can see, we march on. The celebration is for those who mixed the mortar for the road, it is for those who poured the cement, and finally for those smoothing and keeping the cracks filled.
Many Americans question why an entire month is dedicated to Afro-American history. Without the realization of the actual contribution of African-Americans to American History, it would be forgotten. There is a movie out today depicting the contributions of Blacks to the civil war, this isn’t in our “standard” history books. A black man performed the first human heart surgery, a black man invented the system of traffic lights. There is a very rich history in the African-American culture. African-American History isn’t just made of civil rights activists and entertainers there is a host of many areas that we have given to and continue to give. The education comes in here. It is the obligation of today’s African-Americans to further this history by educating the people around.