Black History Month

Feb 25, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Black History Month is celebrated in February. It is fitting that an entire month has been set aside to commemorate and cherish the achievements and contributions of Africans/Blacks in history. It is encouraging that America, which has it long, sordid history of reprehensible treatment of Black people has led the way in the celebration of this month to honor the record of Blacks. It is a record of expansive transcendence of their many, countless, stories of glory, despite the circumstances, notwithstanding the odds.

What is now the norm in America, should find place, given energy, to gain traction in Guyana. And, though, this focus is on the celebration of Black achievements, those of other great human segments and presences should never, ever, be allowed to fall by the wayside, given the back of the hand in mere pro forma recognition. As the stars in the Black pantheon of heroes and heroines are remembered and embrace, there should also be no forgetting, no minimising, of the unsung and the unknown, who must be heralded, too.

Known or unknown, recognized or not, accepted or not, the list is long in the pioneering achievements of Blacks in America. What makes the list even more remarkable is the singular substances of the history of Black Americans in a society that was bent on keeping them down, and in their places at the bottom of the bottom. Despite the centuries of bondage that kept their noses relentlessly and cruelly pressed to the grindstones of chattel servitude, and the appalling, unimaginable poverty, wretchedness of barren circumstances, they still did overcome. The faith that brings hope, the hope that instils a spirit of never giving in, never giving up, never giving less of the essence of the humanity that was denied them for so long.

It brings recoiling, the most jarring contradiction, that in a new land of the greatest providence, with a sworn commitment to the mantra of “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”What life, what liberty, what pursuit of anything noble or idealistic, even godly, for Black Americans by the authors of those inspiring words, the Founding Fathers of America? How could it be, when Black Americans (that some of them owned) did not even qualify as a whole human being, but of less, in the fraction concocted for convenience to perpetuate a most ‘odious institution’?

Yet, and yet, Black Americans triumphed slowly at first, then in increasing numbers, as access to quality education, doors opening, and opportunities being seized occurred. In almost every field of endeavor, Black Americans had to fight for their place, and then to earn it again and again. From education to entertainment, from the true meaning of precious liberty to maximizing their presence and power (politics, progressiveness of thought, of wisdom, of convictions), and from culture to creativity, Blacks have made more than their share of contributions. Not just in America, but in numerous other societies, including Guyana.

In America we know of Booker T. Washington, followed by a WEB Dubois, then at the other end of the spectrum a Marcus Garvey and a Stokely Carmichael, two Black men with lineage traceable to this region. There has been the incomparable Martin Luther and the inimitable Nat King Cole; a Sojourner Truth and then the unsparing truths of her people and their perils, their poignant history. Black History Month is theirs, and those for whom they paved the way in tears and tireless, thankless toil. In Guyana, we have had Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow and Ashton Chase, and dare we say, for better or worse, a Forbes Burnham and a Roger Luncheon. Not to forget, Clive Lloyd, Letitia Wright, a British Baroness.

The celebration of Black History Month has room for the embrace of non-blacks, who have recorded their own stellar histories, and those who have contributed to the grandeur of the Black cause, when it is not so fashionable, and acceptable, to take such a stance. In this Black History Month, we celebrate achievements and contributions, and of lives well lived.

America, Black History, Editorial, Guyana, Month

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