DISCUSS...





Black Americans have been shortchanged by history as it is popularly transmitted. But giving us our own month of “Black History” makes matters worse...

...The commemoration is a damaging form of apartheid, setting the contributions of black Americans aside as separate and unequal. It sends the wrong signal to all Americans, black, white and brown.
Cynthia Tucker : editorial page editor Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The stories that a nation tells about its history provide a foundation for building community, creating institutions and transmitting values. For a pluralistic democracy such as the United States, the work that historians call "constructing a usable past" is vital to the task of building a future. That's why it's imperative that people who want that future to be built on principles of inclusion, mutual respect and genuinely equal opportunity should understand and embrace commemorations such as Black History Month.
Kim Pearson --member of the advisory board of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)

A couple black history months ago, the company my father works at had a special way to celebrate the black people in their company. On a Friday, everyone of African descent was supposed to wear something brown so others in the company could appreciate them for being black. When word got around to my father, he asked his boss, "So, can I just come in naked?" You see, my father knows a big secret about black history month. It is not designed to celebrate black history. It is designed to make white people feel good.
Everdeen Mason-- is a junior in journalism at Ohio State University

(The above makes me wonder if to some people in the country, The Office looks like a documentary)

I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.
Dick Gregory


Why does the black history conversation have to start with slavery anyway? Were there no black people in existence before the 17th century? After casually mentioning the arrival of slaves to America, we then rattle off a list of standard achievements: "A black man invented this," or "John Q. Blackman was the first to accomplish that." All the while, there is little or no acknowledgment of the great civilizations of Africa to match the incessant drilling of Greek and Roman history into the heads of our kids.
Dr. Boyce Watkins-- is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the initiator of the National Conversation on Race

We are “The United States of Amnesia.”
--Gore Vidal

Carter Woodson instituted what became Black History Month because there was a desperate need for it. He felt that people who had been written out of the history books needed to have an awareness of their contributions to society--as does every ethnic group. Slavery and it's aftermath is still the 600 pound gorilla in America's living room, asking to be acknowledged; we need to have informed and rational discussions about race, and to recognize the damage done both to the oppressors and the oppressed.

However, perhaps the time has come to put black history where it belonged all along: squarely in the mainstream of American and world history, not as some ghettoized spot on the calendar or in colleges. We are a part of this history, not some optional adjunct.
Posted by Azna A Amira on Minnesota Public radio Website

What's shaking, chiefy baby?
Thurgood Marshall--his customary greeting to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger





Interesting web site: Lettersofnote.com. Archive of letters to and from various famous, infamous and not famous people on all kinds of topics from many different eras. BTW: If you go there, check this one out:
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/02/mickey-mantles-outstanding-experience.html
...I laughed out loud.

Anyway, this one is extraordinary, and was featured on aldaily.com. You can go to link below and read it in better context...but I've reprinted in entirety anyway cause I know some people don't like going to links and it's worth spreading around for maximum exposure--since we all know how popular my site is. Anyway, amazing document, amazing letter, practically an entire history lesson in one short note...not to mention the literary skills of the author. Elmore Leonard would give him an A+ on every count
including extra credit for sense of humor.

Go to:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/to-my-old-master.html

Or read on...

In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated).

Photo: (Source: The Freedmen's Book; Image: A group of escaped slaves in Virginia in 1862, courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Dayton, Ohio,

August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson.