A questioning glimpse at Black History Month

Feb 15, 2015 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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COUNTRYMAN – Stories about life, in and out of Guyana, from a Guyanese perspective

By Dennis Nichols
Skeptics! We like history, and trivia, and we are seekers after the truth. We ask many questions, question many answers, and draw only guarded conclusions. So this month is Black History Month in the United States and Canada, and by

association, Guyana and most of the Caribbean will at least acknowledge, if not celebrate, aspects of African history.
But what exactly is Black history, and what should we celebrate?
First question! Who, or what, is Black? That’s a hundred-page answer right there. I am Black, but my ancestors came from Egypt, West Africa and Scotland. I have cousins who appear 90% East Indian but have African blood in their veins. Barack Obama is solidly half-White, but he is Black. Bob Marley, whose father was White, identified solidly as Black. And there are undoubtedly a million more in-betweens.
Second question! Why do so many mixed-race people identify themselves, or are perceived, as Black, when they obviously have less Black in them than any of their other admixtures? Quadroons, Octoroons, and Quintroons, those moronic names given to some ‘coloured’ people in American slave and aboriginal societies, were easily much more White than Black. Ignorance, condescension, or both?
For years I thought American actress Carol Channing was White, as was Russian writer Alexander Pushkin. Turns out they’re ‘Black’. I don’t know about Pushkin, but Channing is said to have come to terms with her ethnicity. So has actor Michael Fosberg (Hard to kill) who grew up with a stepfather, and thought he was White, until age 32, when he discovered his biological father was Black, and subsequently embraced his mixed heritage with candour and dignity.

(Incidentally, I often wondered if it was because Guyanese literary giants Edgar Mittelholzer and Martin Carter experienced some ambivalence over their ethnicity that they felt compelled to address and embrace social issues related to race and class. {Mittelholzer identified as a swarthy boy, and Carter with the Nigger Yard})
For my part, I deliberately chose to consolidate and perpetuate my Blackness following the social and Black awakening of the sixties and seventies. The dashiki, the afro, and the afro-comb were more than fashion statements. And I ensured that each of my children had at least one ‘motherland’ name, in the West African/Ghanaian tradition.
Yet I acknowledge my European heritage, and I have a distinct fondness for things British, (mostly Scottish and Irish) particularly music and poetry, for which I experience an almost mystical affinity. And while I respect African art, I’m not particularly fond of it. So am I Black enough to engage in a valid, albeit brief, reflection on Black History Month? Well, that’s

what I’m doing.
Black History Month actually began in 1926, as Negro History Week, the brainchild of Black historian/author, Carter Woodson, who chose February because it was the birth month of two men who played a prominent role in the affairs of African Americans in the 19th century – Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Not surprisingly, Woodson discovered that African-American contributions ‘were overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks, and the teachers who use them”.
Interestingly though, Woodson, who also wrote on matters relating to West Indian/African American relations, felt that ‘the West Indian negro is free’ and that ‘West Indian societies had been more successful (than America) at properly dedicating the necessary amounts of time and resources needed to educate and genuinely emancipate people’. Hmm, I wonder what Caricom leaders think of those sentiments?
It is said that Woodson was ostracized by some of his contemporaries who felt he shouldn’t separate African-American history from more general American history, and even in historically-Black colleges, his efforts to get Black culture and history into the curriculum, were often unsuccessful.
Today however, Woodson’s legacy remains intact, with African-American studies having become specialized fields of study in colleges and universities. The US government recognizes and celebrates Black History Month, and schools in general set aside this time each year to focus, and refocus, on African-American history.
But what does all of this mean to the average American (Black or otherwise), the average West Indian, and the average Guyanese? Do we truly care about the history, culture, and contributions of Black people, anywhere? And in our shrinking, multicultural world, should we? African-American actor, Morgan Freeman, famously (or notoriously) said, “I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.”
Here in Guyana we will undoubtedly have our rounds of lectures and exhibitions, and we will hear a great deal about Black inventions and Black firsts, and maybe reparations for slavery. We will rehash the exploits and contributions of people like Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B Dubois, Booker T. Washington, Charles Drew, Rosa Parks, Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela and, hopefully, Walter Rodney and Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow.
But what about other Black/non-White West Indian and Guyanese figures? Sure, many people know about Marcus Garvey, Sidney Poitier, and Cheddi Jagan. However, there are several Caribbean historical and cultural figures who gained regional and international recognition that I’m certain many West Indians know little of, other than in sports and popular music.
Toussaint L’Ouverture, Samuel Sharpe, Paul Bogle, Frantz Fanon, Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul, Aime Cesaire, Hubert Critchlow, Shirley Chisholm, C.L.R. James, Valerie Amos, and Hilary Beckles should be household names in the Caribbean, but most aren’t. Remember Ms. Jamaica’s answer at the recent Miss Universe contest which some observers felt may have cost her the title? Bob Marley and Usain Bolt yes, but what about Nanny, the Maroon, or Alexander Bustamante?
The relevance of Black history to countries with large non-White populations is valid and should not be taken lightly, or dismissed, as some have suggested. Certainly not in this country where too many Afro-Guyanese seem to have a very limited and very superficial understanding of their history, coupled with what I can describe only as occasionally rabid self-hatred.
Also for some Guyanese, Black History Month may be too closely associated with former president L.F.S. Burnham, (perceived by them as a dictator) his February 20th birthday, the proclamation of Guyana’s republic status on February 23rd 1970, and with Mashramani, first celebrated in Linden that same year.
By the way, Black History Month in the United States was first celebrated in February 1970. Coincidence!
Ultimately, ‘Black’ history may be everyone’s history, as growing archaeological and DNA evidence points to the continent of Africa as the birthplace of the human race. The suggestion is that all anatomically modern humans descended in an unbroken line from one East African woman dubbed ‘Mitochondrial Eve’ the mother of all mothers, and humans.
Even for those of us who are more inclined to the notion of biblical creationism, the inference is the same; all humans are genetically related in an unbroken line from Adam and Eve. And there is the further suggestion that Eden may have been an actual location in Eastern or Northern Africa.
So indeed, like we say in Guyanese vernacular ‘All ah we ah one family’. The idea of a Black History Month is a fair notion, and I for one, will defend its validity. At the same time, though, I love the idea of one true human race, where physical differences in colour of skin and texture of hair are so blurred as to become imperceptible. And one interwoven quilt of history. Then Black history will be human history, and this skeptic will turn believer.

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