FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Mar 03, 2019 Consumer Concerns, Features / Columnists

---

By PAT DIAL

Consumer advocates are concerned not only with the goods and services consumers buy and use but they are also concerned with socio-cultural matters if they affect the public in any negative way. Every year in February, Black History Month is commemorated worldwide, particularly in countries where large African-descended populations reside. Guyana is one such country.
Black History Month originated in the United States during the high days of segregation and discrimination against Black People, Black academics discovered that in the major American universities, Black or African History was given little notice since the general assumption of academia was that Sub-Saharan Africa and Black People had no History and had made no contribution to human betterment or civilization.
Such an assumption resulted in Black People being despised as being of a lower grade of Humanity and gave an intellectual justification for segregation and discrimination.
A number of historians, both Black and White, realized that something was amiss when so large a segment of the Human Race was believed to have contributed nothing to Civilization or even to themselves. This opened up a new and fruitful area of sociological, historical, anthropological and archaeological studies.
In a short time, discoveries like the beginnings of early Man in the Rift Valley and Sub-Saharan achievements and Civilizations came to be placed in their proper provenance, Simultaneously, the Black contribution to America began to be uncovered.
Gradually, the understanding began to seep into Academia that human survival and the very beginnings of Human Civilization could be traced to Black Africa.
The achievements of ancient Egyptian Civilization were shown to have a close relationship to Black Africa and indeed many of the Pharaohs were Black. This increase of knowledge of Black History has helped to reduce prejudice and discrimination against Black People to the point where America could elect a Black President, Barack Obama.
In Guyana, Black History Month is marked by reviewing the achievements of Afro-Guyanese and more important, in efforts to cultivate nation-building and more progressive and constructive attitudes among Afro-Guyanese.
In Guyana, over the last two generations, since life has become so politicized, if anyone either inside or outside of an ethnic group speaks about the group, the cry of “racism” is raised against him. Such cries of racism run counter to the concept of the Plural Society which Guyana has clearly become and which needs to be continually explained, articulated and popularized.
When it is fully grasped that Guyana is a Plural Society, it will be realized that Black Achievements or the achievements of all other ethnic groups are part of our national heritage and as such belong to all groups.
All groups could therefore share in the satisfaction of Black achievements as well as in the achievements of all other groups. This is different from America where so far, Black achievements are regarded as strictly Black achievements.
There are two Black or Afro-Guyanese achievements, which we would like to highlight since they bring satisfaction and empathy to all ethnic groups. The first is the long struggle against plantation slavery and the final victory of Emancipation. Emancipation was fundamental to the creation the modern state and nation of Guyana.
The other Afro-Guyanese achievement was the Village Movement, which followed Emancipation. The freedmen who had carefully saved the very small wages they had received during the Apprenticeship System and the tiny incomes they earned from their Sunday Markets were able to pool their resources cooperatively and purchase abandoned sugar plantations from which they created villages.
The Village Movement was one of the most memorable moments of Guyanese History and of which every Guyanese could be proud. Simple largely unlettered Afro-Guyanese freedmen were able to create new communities from scratch.
They demarcated thousands of house lots, laid out streets, drainage systems, farms, created a village economy and a system of village government and above all they organized a school system which in a generation was able to produce high caliber intellectuals.
As pointed out above, Emancipation helped to create modern Guyana since it led to the importation of indentured servants from Africa, Madeira, China and India who helped to people the colony and create the unique country Guyana is.
The Village Movement showed that Guyanese, and in particular Afro-Guyanese, had a culture of thrift, saving, enterprise and entrepreneurship, a sense of democratic Government, cooperation, maintaining Law and Order and a commitment to Education and learning.
They also were god-fearing and had reverence for religion. African History Month could help us to reflect on past achievements and recapture those virtues and qualities, which created those achievements.

---

---