Black History Month flew by so fast that I almost missed it. You too?
I am going to be more careful when Older Americans History Month arrives this coming May. For reasons I will explain.
At first, when I noticed Black History Month was almost over, I wondered if I had been irresponsible. But then I heard someone on the radio, yesterday, making the case that Black History Month is simply a bad idea.
It turns out that a lot of people are making the same case lately. For various reasons.
Some feel that it’s racist to celebrate a particular race for an entire month, when White people don’t get a month dedicated to them.
Many other groups have staked out a dedicated History Month in the calendar: Women, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, American Indian Americans, Hispanic Americans.
But so far, the campaign to create White History Month has failed to generate sufficient support.
Others reportedly feel that Black History and White History are in fact the Same History, and it’s racist to treat them as Separate Histories. This argument is coming from people of diverse backgrounds, and they have a valid point. In my opinion.
Still others feel specialized History months like Black History Month have been beneficial, and continue to be beneficial.
So, with all these arguments flying around, I naturally got interested in the History of Black History Month. Turns out a Harvard student named Carter G. Woodson — the first person of enslaved parents to receive a PhD from that school — heard one of his (White) professors make the claim, during a lecture, that “The negro had no history.”
Which goes to prove that even Harvard professors can be idiots.
After getting his PhD, Woodson helped found the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, in Chicago in 1915. The association publicly announced Negro History Week in 1925, and it gradually caught on. Negro History Week ultimately became Black History Week (in 1972) and then expanded into Black History Month (in 1976).
I can certainly understand the motivations of a person like Carter G. Woodson, sitting in a lecture hall — presumably surrounded by students descended from wealthy families who were never enslaved — and hearing a professor claim that “The negro had no history.”
You would feel compelled to prove your professor wrong, as Mr. Woodson obviously did.
I have myself felt compelled to prove certain people wrong, although generally over much less weighty matters, and also less successfully. Now that I am older and no doubt wiser, however, I believe I could make a case for Older Americans History Month. Being older implies that you’ve witnessed some History first-hand, even if you can’t remember exactly what happened. (Especially, perhaps, the names of the people involved. Am I right?)
The people responsible for precipitating History — at least, the ones who got their names published in the History books, where you can look them up in case you forgot them — have indeed come from various groups, and we can understand the urge to provide each group with its own History Month. But Older Americans seem, to me, the ideal group for having their own dedicated History Month, because it includes everyone, eventually. Hey, we all get older, if we’re lucky enough.
I have to agree with the people who argue that we all share the Same History, in general, even if some of us were accidentally left out of the History books. (Which includes me, so far.)
(Not that I’m complaining. Hitler is in the History books, and look how it turned out for him?)
My final advice: don’t get into an argument with your wife over Women’s History Month. You will not win.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.