FebruaryBlack History Month Series
Why Do this
This is my second year of Sawari’s Black History Month series. The series includes daily articles, poetry and other forms of writing recognizing important figures and themes surrounding Black history. I like to take advantage of these few weeks of the year as a time for education and reflection. Within the series I’m intentional in learning about different elements of Black history worldwide, but particularly in the United States. In addition, I’m also being intentional in thinking about how our history has played in a role in Black life and community today. It’s no wonder that February, being the shortest month of the year, is littered with other themes that draw away from the focus on Black History: Valentines Day, President’s Day, Lincoln’s birthday, to name a few. These ‘holidays’ I address underneath the umbrella of Black History on their assigned dates. But through these deflections from our month of celebration we can see how the lens of Black History has been distorted for centuries. Many historical ‘achievements’ of the black community beginning with the shipment of Africans to North America in 1619, is that really the extent to which our achievements are measured?
Surely Not
A few weeks ago I was shocked to read about the battles that occurred in Africa in an attempt to stop the kidnapping of slaves. These battles are the collective beginning of the African Resistance, “Africans started to fight the transatlantic slave trade as soon as it began. Their struggles were multifaceted and covered four continents over four centuries. Still, they have often been underestimated, overlooked, or forgotten” (Diouf). I’d never known that there were battles in an attempt to stop the slave ships, but why wouldn’t there be? Those people who were taken were apart of families: they were sisters, brothers, daughters, sons, husbands and wives. We’ve been told that we are decedents of the criminals that sold by their own, and it’s a manipulative lie that has been used to make Blacks in America feel abandoned, and even rejected, from their homeland. This estranged feeling continues to be a persistent part of the Black experience in the United States. When I learned about the battles of the African Resistance I was filled with pride, my ancestors were fought for! That’s a fact that I’ve been mislead to think otherwise for decades, imagine if black children were taught this in school. This signifies the great need for us to learn and recognize our history, it instills us with a sense of identity, belonging, pride and awareness that can’t be replaced by any other type of knowledge.
As we begin this month of discovery I’ll include this piece by Al-fatah Stewart (also known as Dr. Bomb) this piece was sent to me fall of last year with his permission to publish.
WE Family
We have been through so much, for so many years,
My pain is as deep as mother’s tears.
We are family but I still see segregation and hate,
We stick together in the hood, but go to war upstate.
Descendants of the same bloodline, with spirits that won’t break,
We go hard against all odds, Whether in slave chains or behind steel gates.
We are one, when did we separate,
Sometimes I have to put my eyes on diets, because my tears gain so much weight.
All of our enemies, we will out last them
So much we could accomplish if we’d bond without clashing,
Together we could out shine the moon and turn the sun to ashes,
Instead of turning over in their graves, our ancestors will look down laughing.
This is what it is, We have to educate our children quick,
We must break the chains and end all myths,
My Brothers and Sisters forever and never flip,
You and I are the same, we were just brought here on different ships.
By: Dr. Bomb
Happy Black History Month 2018
February 3rd –The Preservation of Seattle’s Black History- Shelf Life Project – Documentation of Gentrification
February 7th – Black Thoughts I Be
February 9th – Hiram Rhodes Revels, Black Senate Representative and Radical Republican Against Forced Racial Mixing
February 10th – Unbought and Unbossed, Black Revolutionary Politician of 1972
February 12th – Lincoln didn’t do Shit for me, I accredit the NAACP
February 13th – Father of Negro Baseball Negro League founded in 1920
February 15th – National Council of Negro Women, 1935
February 16th – The Congress of Racial Equality (1942) from the Pursuit of Integration to Black Separatism
February 17th – UNCF, Igniting a Fire that Burned for Generations
February 19th – “So, now.. vote for a crazy nigger,” Presidential Candidate Clennon Washington King Jr.
February 20th – Oscar Award Winning “Mammy” Segregated during the Ceremony
February 23rd – The American Dream is a Nightmare
February 24th – The Black Panther Movement, Reignited by Wakanda
February 26th – The Black Panther Movie, the Wakanda Movement
February 27th – Invaluable Black Female Contributions to STEM
February 28th – Lift What They Never Told Me