Attacking/Advancing Black History

This month, as is February every year, is widely recognized as Black History Month. But this year, Black history is being both attacked and advanced more than in most preceding years. 

Black History Month was conceived by historian Carter G. Woodson. The son of enslaved parents, Woodson (1875~1950) was the second Black person to earn a Ph.D. (in 1912) from Harvard University, the first being W.E.B. Du Bois.

Woodson established what became Black History Month in 1926, choosing February because of President Lincoln’s birthday on Feb. 12 and Frederick Douglass’s birthday on Feb. 14. (The day and even the year of Douglass’s birth is not known for sure, but his death date of Feb. 20, 1895, is certain.)

Black History Month has been observed annually in the U.S. since 1976. While there have always been detractors, perhaps the study of Black history is questioned/attacked more this year than ever before.

The teaching of Black history is being attacked especially by numerous (almost entirely Republican) politicians. Foremost among those are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is now the frontrunner as the GOP nominee for next year’s presidential election.

A law passed in 1994 requires the teaching of Florida’s Black history in K-12 schools. But DeSantis has mounted an attack on what he calls the “woke mob,” claiming that certain instruction of Black history is the equivalent of political indoctrination.

“Florida’s struggle to teach Black history has become a battle over who controls the past” is a fairly long article by Mary Ellen Klas, a White woman who is a “bureau chief” for the Miami Herald newspaper.

I recommend the reading of Klas’s article, which was posted February 8 on the Miami Herald’s website (see here). Her closing words are from George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

DeSantis is by no means the only prominent politician who is trying to control the past and the future by objecting to the teaching of Black history in the present.

In her GOP rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday evening (Feb. 7), Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed that “our children are taught to hate one another on account of their race.”

That charge was in keeping with her January 10 “Executive Order to Prohibit Indoctrination and Critical Race Theory in Schools,” in which she claimed that CRT “emphasizes skin color as a person’s primary characteristic, thereby resurrecting segregationist values . . . .”

Southern governors shamefully distort facts to attack the teaching of Black history in their states—and in the nation as a whole.

Black history is being strongly asserted by “The 1619 Project,” a “long-form journalism endeavor” developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from The New York Times, and The New York Times Magazine.

The first publication of that endeavor was in August 2019, commemorating the 400^th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colony of Virginia.

Its aim was “to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of U.S. history."

Hannah-Jones (b. 1976) was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for her lead essay in “The 1619 Project.” She was also chosen as first on a list of “The Most Influential African Americans 2020” (see here).

A six-part TV docuseries produced by Hulu debuted on January 26. Hannah-Jones is the host of that series that explores Black history as related to the themes that are the titles of the six TV episodes: democracy, race, music, capitalism, fear, and justice.

There has been criticism of Hannah-Jones’s work, some of it by historians and legitimate. Indeed, there are deficiencies in presenting history in sweeping generalizations and folksy anecdotes. But for the general public, there are advantages to presenting history in such a way.

Most of the criticism, though, has been by right-wing politicians and others who will not acknowledge the reality of systematic racism and also by those who want to preserve white supremacy in the country.

Black History Month is important as a time for challenging the unwarranted prevalence of white supremacy and for advancing acceptance of the reality of systematic racism that has been highly detrimental for so many Blacks in the United States, a reality that dates back to 1619.

The Problem of (Teaching) History: “1619” or “1776”?

This post is closely related to my June 19 article regarding critical race theory (CRT). Most of the legislation seeking to curtail the teaching of CRT has included criticism of The 1619 Project as well. CRT and “1619” both raise the question of how history is understood and taught.  

The Problem of Microhistory

Each one of us has our own personal history, which should, one would think, be rather straightforward and non-problematic. But in writing my life story, now available in print, some historical “facts” came under question. June did not remember some of our family history the same way I did.

The two siblings in Ann Patchett’s intriguing book The Dutch House (2019) discuss their family’s microhistory. One asks, “Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?” The other reflects on how we humans

overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered (p. 45).

The Problem of Macrohistory

Recently I also read The Sense of an Ending (2011) by British author Julian Barnes. In that novel, one “high school” student remarks, “History is the lies of the victors.” The teacher retorts that “it is also the self-delusions of the defeated.”

At that point, the most brilliant student in the class says, rather cynically, “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation” (pp. 16-17).

If that is true in personal or family history; it is especially true in writing macrohistory. But the problem is more than just the imperfections of memory and the inadequacies of documentation.

The most serious problem is the biases of the historians and the conscious or unconscious interpretation of past events for the benefit of a particular segment of society.

Thus, the squabble over The 1619 Project continues.

U.S. History: “1619” or “1776”?

In 2019, The New York Times Magazine published The 1619 Project, developed by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and others.

The year 1619 was when the first African slaves set foot in North America. The 1619 Project, then, “aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative" (from this link).

The 1619 Project was strongly criticized by politicians such as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (see here) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who proposed the Saving of American History Act of 2020 (see here), and especially by former Pres. Trump.

On the day before the 2020 presidential election, by executive order DJT established the 1776 Commission. Republican politicians continue to praise the flawed 1776 Commission report and to castigate The 1619 Project.

The “1776 Pledge to Save Our Schools” is being signed by numerous politicians, such as the two current Republican gubernatorial candidates in Kansas, who were rebuked by an editorial in the June 28 issue of the Kansas City Star.

There are some obvious problems with The 1619 Project, including some historical inaccuracies (as noted in this 3/6/20 Politico article). It also fails to link the beginning of U.S. history to the mistreatment of Native Americans (as this 9/26/20 opinion piece explains).

But most who oppose teaching CRT and “1619” want to shield students from much of the “ugly” history of the past. They need to consider, though, the truth of the following meme. (The painting depicts some dreadful history of Canada’s First Nations children, similar to what happened in the U.S.) 

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**Of the many articles I have read related to this post, I am linking here to only one, Eugene Robinson’s 6/28 opinion piece in The Washington Post, which is accessible here without a paywall. The sixth paragraph on is directly about The 1619 Project.