Ambra,

Though we don't often agree, I've got to say you hit me with this one. I couldn't agree more.

I, too, have a hard time in accepting the fact that schools in this country continue to isolate Black history teachings to simply one month of the school year (and the shortest month at that).

A more concerted effort should seriously be made to integrate Black studies into all history and social studies courses.

And I've long held the belief that the slaves are the sole reason our country is the way it is today. They're the ones who really built up this country to what it is today. I believe that most all credit to the United States that we know today is due to them.

Ditto

Speaking as an amateur historian, there definitely are areas (at least in American history) where black particpation has never been adequately. Since I like military history, I tend to focus on that sub-genre.

Not many people know that there were free blacks who participated in the Revolutionary War, and even after the movie Glory not many folks have a good idea of how many black men volunteered for the North, such as the now-famous 54th Massachusetts.

What really torqued me off was how long it took historians to begin discussing the role of black Americans in WW2. You know, "The Greatest Generation."

One of my favorite publishers as a kid was American Heritage, and I still believe today that the books they put out in the 60s inspired my fascination with history to this day. That said, the Amerian Heritage History of World War Two doesn't even mention black Americans, and I think there might be one small photo of one page where you'll see a black soldier.

What's worse is that I was in my late thirties before I learned about the Tuskeegee Airmen. You see, I'm a history nut squared when it comes to aviation. I can argue for hours whether a P-51 was better than a P-47 (or not) for hours, and for years no one told me about one of the finest fighter groups in the ETO: the 332nd.

I got even more angry after seeing HBOs movie on the Airmen, with Jeff Fishburn. Honestly, who wants to fight for a country when they give the good seats to the Nazi POWs on trains!? Those men were certainly made of better stuff than I.

And I've yet to read a good general history or see a good movie on the Buffalo Soldiers.

Ok. I feel better now.

Ambra,
What was true 35 years ago may not be valid today. From before the American Revolution, in the Boston Massacre, blacks have been involved. Does Charles R. Drew, who saved untold lives through blood plasma, qualify as true hero? This helped the Allies win WWII. Should you write US history textbooks?

James M. Barber

Something truly sad is that despite the inordinate attention paid to the selective few, most of the high school graduates of today of any ethnic group do not know the truth about Black or any other heritage. I've had Black history Month soundly denounced around my way as a "politically correct tool", yet when I point out the small benefit that for 28 days the media shifts gears from negative portrayal to attempts at historical accuracy, I just get dirty looks and accusations of supporting multiculturalism.

For the record I have no problem with people celebrating their history and culture. It becomes a problem when that culture becomes the primary identifier of a person. My Christianity comes first. Then my being a brother, son, uncle etc; then comes my manhood. Then comes my ethnicity.

A Sigma wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing."

SING IT!!!

Jason: I ain't singin' no Lift Every Voice. I don't care if somebody from your blue and white gang wrote it either....boi.

Mark La Roi wrote, "My Christianity comes first. Then my being a brother, son, uncle etc; then comes my manhood. Then comes my ethnicity.

Now this will preach.

James: Me writing textbooks? Yeah right. That sounds like a suicide mission.

Any christian who wants to know about the "rev" martin luther king can go here:

http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/king.htm

men like king, jackson, and sharpton only used the church to acheieve their social goals. Why do u think Jacksons organization is called Rainbow push.

I'm just glad I'm out of high school.

Black History Month was not conceived by the government or the school systems- it's father was historian Carter G. Woodson, who developed "Negro History Week". It is essential as long as schoolchildren, with scant time spent on each period of American history, confuse WW I ann WW II, can't distinguish Theodore from Franklin Roosevelt, and many would be hard pressed to name an activist or organizer not named King. More importantly, viewing 230 years of U.S. history through the prism of personalities such as Crispus Attucks, Robert Smalls, W.E.B. DuBois, Louis Armstrong, Jack Johnson, The Little Rock Nine,Diane Nash, and Muhammad Ali, provides students with a telling mirror on what the American psyche was at the time each person was prominent. It's a societal Rorshach test, not a laundry list of inventions and achievements.

My mom made sure I didn't just know the "token Negroes" when I was younger and not just during Black History Month.

"Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson" by Kenneth Timmerman is a good book on the "Rev" Jackson.

My mom made sure I didn't just know the "token Negroes" when I was younger and not just during Black History Month.

"Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson" by Kenneth Timmerman is a good book on the "Rev" Jackson.

"I’d like to point out that we often fail to recognize on whose backs the “building” was achieved."

"And I've long held the belief that the slaves are the sole reason our country is the way it is today. They're the ones who really built up this country to what it is today. I believe that most all credit to the United States that we know today is due to them."

Well now, a little full of ourselves aren't we? A contribution to be sure. A WHOLE lot of sweat. Yea, but let's not overstate the case. Slavery held back America as much as it helped it?

History is one of my favorite subjects and I hate the way that black people are held out as if they lived in some alternate universe. Let's keep it in balance, but please. History is not a press release.

It's not as if black folks didn't make real contributions to our country. Let's not sensationalize the mundane and ignore why this country is how it is.

The greatest and last, best hope.

I was not borne out to California in 1936 on the back of Nubian slaves, but in the rumble seat of a 1928 Oakland. Life was not a bowl of roses for most of the people back then, and histories that presume that only Blacks toiled and that only Blacks went hungry serve Blacks add others poorly. We are all in this together. Do not forget the debt freedom owes to Edna Ferber and Harriet Beacher Stowe.

Um, I'd be fairly hesitant about saying we owe Harriet Beecher Stowe a debt. Personally, I think her book caused more damage than it did progress.

Bijan: I recognize the intent of Carter G. Woodson and at the time I think it was appropriate. All I'm saying is that I think the month has become so commercial and the direction we should be heading is to not have to need black history month.

"All I'm saying is that I think the month has become so commercial and the direction we should be heading is to not have to need black history month."

Exactly!

Honestly people,
Are we really going to go back and forth with who made MORE contribution in building America?!? As an African-American, I don't have to say, "My ancestors built this place and therefore your's didn't!" Jade..."A little full of ourselves" is what you say about African-Americans proudly claiming our contribution to the building of American!? Of course slavery held back America...but is that not the nature of the beast. Contribution and accomplishment despite circumstance can not be overlooked. My point-let's not waste time saying..."I/Mine contributed and your's didn't" even the white folks who believed in Manifest Destiny and the killing off of people contributed to where we live today. Let's not use Black History, which as Ambra said is everyone's history, (or any other history) to divide us who know that we have all made significant contribution and need to look at American History more truthfully-INCLUDING ALL PEOPLE WHO MADE IT!

Ambra:

I've seen middle school social studies books- these kids (and teachers)need the month.

Bijan: Yes they do, and I agree. I never said we should nix the month immediately. The point of the post is lets head towards NOT needing it, which essentially means some major curriculum reform.

I don't like the schools can write everyone off every other day of the year save their "special month". It's intellectually dishonest.

And I agree Jasmine: The back and forth is petty and not really the point. Not sure who took it there, but let's end it there.

Funny, when I was in college (Jesuit Catholic, mind you) I took an American History class. The teacher was a newly enlightened white man (niece married some pro ball player so suddenly the family who only let black folks come to the back door changed their mind) who made a point to inject the contributions of black Americans to every "lesson." At the end of the semester, he got several nasty comments from students ... one of which was "I did not take this class to learn about a bunch of niggers!" ... Now this was 1979 but, from what I hear, the white kids who attend Marquette University aren't much different from those whe were there when I attended ... and it's sad. I've always said that if it happened in America, it's American history but apparently the mainstream still begs to differ.

Seems to me, when I learned history, they didn't tell us the ethnicity of hardly ANY of the people we were learning about. Occasionally when someone was a 1st generation transfer from Europe, we'd learn that. But that's about it. French? English? African? didn't come up.

What was important was what they did for our country.

Oh, and I knew quite well that we had black soldiers (esp freemen) all the way back to the Revolutionary War. But perhaps my school in Texas was just better that way.

Look what I read recently:
http://aconstrainedvision.blogspot.com/2005/02/how-history-should-be-taught.html
"Once, at a parent open house night early in the year when I taught 8th grade, a black mother came up afterwards and asked if I was going to teach black history that year. I wasn't sure what she wanted, but I told her that it would be impossible to teach American history without talking about blacks in our history. But I did not believe in teaching it as a separate subject, but preferred to integrate (forgive the pun) that history into every era of American history. We don't have separate black and white history. "

Bijan is right about the textbooks. You should have seen my wife chasing library staff around, steamed at the schools, when the response my daughter gave to "Fredric Douglass said..." was "Fredric who?"

Harriet Beecher Stowe's book caused more damage?

Um...Jasmine. Please look at the names of the people you critique next time..."Steven J Kelso Jr." hardly looks like "Jade"... >_

Lift every voice and sing.
Till earth and heavan ring.
Ring with the harmony
of liberty.

In its time, it was proper.

"men like king, jackson, and sharpton only used the church to acheieve their social goals. Why do u think Jacksons organization is called Rainbow push."- Shari

Yeah, pandering religion is something the right would never do! Folks like Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberson would never dream of it.

I teach middle school (my first few years it was American History and world geography). I have to disagree that the contributions of Blacks and other minority groups are covered inadequately, at least in the texts my school has used. Just about every chapter/unit examines various groups' contributions.

And therein lies the "problem": How do textbook companies decide how much "coverage" each group gets? Should Crispus Attucks get more pages in the text than Thomas Jefferson or James Madison -- just because he's black? Does Frederick Douglass get the same amount of pages as Lincoln?

My school has a big emphasis on Black History Month; however, the two Am. Hist. teachers (both white, BTW) whom I know quite well, cover Black history as American history throughout the year. As it should be.

Black American history is American history.

Ambra,

I understand what you're talking about, but I do believe that BHM has done some good things. One of the people I work with used the occasion to give a two-hour long presentation on Frederick Douglass (he is a great-grandson), and I learned a great deal about Black history from it.

That said, no particular ethnic group can lay claim to being the one "on whose backs America was built." America was built by people of all races and ethnic groups -- some more than others, but not the extent that any of them can claim the process for themselves. The Scotch-Irish played a hugely significant part in the building of this nation, as did immigrants from all over the world.

I think it is wrong to say that "Black history IS American history," unless you include the caveat that the same is true for just about every ethnic group on the planet.

The truth is that American history is American history. We're all in this together, and the reason why MLK is such a hugely important part of American history is because his dream is the American dream, not the Black dream. I think he SHOULD be celebrated, because he changed the way we all think. I still read Letters from a Birmingham Jail around this time every year, and I look forward to it because I believe that exposing myself to these deepests truths about humanity and about freedom makes me a better man.

The truth is that I have as much right to MLK's legacy as you do, and you have as much right to the legacy of John Stuart Mill or Benjamin Franklin as any white person does ... because as Americans, we are the inheritors of their combined histories.

That's what MLK was trying to say ... although I think the message is largely lost on people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. America is not about diversity, America is about unity.

BHM was supposed to be a stepping stone that would integrate black history into the teaching of all American history. ambra is right, we should have achieved this by now

In Februray we don't celebrate Black history month! Black history is global and reaches over centurys. African american history is what that month is for and we should all know the difference.