Executive Director - Morris McCorvey

February is African-American History Month at the Westside Community Center and in every black community; because, 85 years ago, noted black educator Dr. Carter G. Woodson called for a week-long observation, exploration and celebration of the historical experiences of Africans in America: And their contributions to American Culture and Manifest Destiny. 

Dr. Woodson’s theory was that the more all Americans know about the African-American experience the healthier we will be as American citizens: African-Americans because we’d be reminded annually –at least- of the nobility of our heritage, and our struggle for survival -against all odds- here in America; And, non-African-Americans because they’d be more able to realize that, despite differences in appearance, most people, including people of color, have the same essential hopes, dreams, aspirations and fears for their loved ones, neighbors, and selves.  American history reflects as much in every period. 

Hopefully, the American public school curriculum will soon be served by textbooks that more accurately and completely reflect American history in all its rich diversity, including the African-American experience. That was Carter G. Woodson’s hope and intent when he first called for a National Negro History Week back in 1922. 

 Dr. Woodson’s week was expanded to a month, re-named and transformed by young militants during the turmoil that followed the assassinations of Dr. King and the Kennedy brothers, and the Vietnam War, during the late 60’s and 70’s. In the years that followed, Black History Month became an annual revisiting of the African slave trade and the crimes against the humanity of the African hostages who would become the first African-Americans. Most Black History celebrants spent February indicting the culture and government which perpetrated those crimes for nearly 400 years; and, earnestly searching for spiritual and cultural connections to their African roots. All of which proved somewhat alienating to most white Americans and many blacks. 

What followed was the natural disenchantment of too many Americans with Dr. Woodson’s proposed celebration: Not surprising after years of persistent focus on the negative aspects of the African-American experience; and, the failure to include a more balanced account of that experience in the public school system’s American History textbooks and curriculum. So, national interest in, and appreciation for, a significant part of our great American- mosaic, our African-American-ness, waned, faded and appeared downright endangered.  General interest in the history of Africans in America during that era was sustained only by black cultural icons: Black entertainers and athletes like Sidney Poitier, Lena Horne, Muhammad Ali, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Beyonce, James Brown, Tupac Shakur, Dwayne Wadeand many others.

It isn’t so difficult for most Americans of all races to connect with their African-American heritage as personified by their favorite African-American cultural icon. At a certain point, patriotism and culture trump race. That is a beginning. Because that is what being an American is all about: The right, freedom, and encouragement to embrace and  utilize the virtues of all the cultures and histories of all the immigrant groups, as well as the natives, who have contributed to what has become the woven fabric of American character.

Throughout our experience in America, black people have, to some extent, been forced to come to terms with, appreciate and embrace our European-American heritage in order to succeed in school and in the European dominated world beyond. Raised on the great American story, we learned to respect and appreciate, and, perhaps miraculously, love in some cases, the Founding Fathers for their courageous principles, despite the fact that many were slave-owners.

Starting all over with no language save the new one imposed on us, we were forced to become intimate with every nuance of our captors culture simply to survive: Our thriving was the ultimate measure of what we learned from “Scratch”, as they say. Such intimacy often leads to great appreciation and, often, mastery. If not mastery, at least enough comfort in this New World that we live today free from the fear that ignorance of the unknown can engender; but, all too often subjected to the fearful actions, reactions and interpretations of fellow citizens who are essentially ignorant of us and our real (i.e.complete) heritage.

Like Carter G. Woodson, I know in my heart and soul that the more America knows about me and mine the less it will fear and distrust us; and, the easier it will be for America to see and celebrate all of its ethnic wealth, including its African-American-ness. Then America can move on to truly realizing the American ideal; and, February can go back to being simply our shortest, sweetest, month. I am certain that was Dr. Woodson’s ultimate objective; and, equally certain we will achieve it in the fullness of our time.