Laura Nwogu, a 21-year-old recent graduate of International Relations and Development, analyses what Black History Month (BHM) means to her.
The absence we talk about but never fill.
There is an absence in our timeline and Black History Month (BHM) was created by Carter G. Woodson with the intent to fill it. As a preteen, my grandmother sat me down and told me “you don’t know anything” and it was not condescending at all, she explained that “as you get older, you’ll think you know and then you find out more things and realise you never knew anything… you don’t know anything.” These words felt internally significant then and they ring true now and will stay with me forever. The saying “history is written by the victors” embodies the idea of knowledge production, and in global history, knowledge production has been controlled by many groups but primarily White people. My grandmother’s words are illuminated in my mind when I think of knowledge production, and BHM is a time to fill the plethora of gaps we all have in our collective memory. Gaps that have purposefully been created by so-called victors who gained the “whole world and lost [their] souls.” (Matthew 16:26) I champion the desire to fill this absence we have in history however I question how people engage with BHM when it is practised.
“To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.” ~ John Henrik Clarke
Black History Month (BHM) growing up for me almost did not exist except for brief mentions of enslavement, Martin Luther King, Olaudah Equiano and Mary Seacole, but none of these histories were even taught in an engaging way. However, what was embedded in us was how Blackness was, and is, equated with the idea of suffering. The holistic teaching of Black History within the curriculum did not exist anywhere else either and the impact of all of this, is that going forward, people could not and still cannot even imagine a world where suffering is not the centre of African/Black life and history.
“Yes, Blackness is so much more than death, trauma and struggle. We are WORTHY of healing, laughter and happiness.” ~ Dr Joy DeGruy
Although BHM was an idea created by Black people, it was introduced to me and many of my peers by White people, by White teachers. These introductions were unmistakably inadequate and reductive because they could not be bothered to engage with African/Black history properly and actively work towards truly celebrating and acknowledging Black history with complete thoughts. All the presentations on Black history we sat through did not explain how the past has impacted the present and how the past and present have a role in impacting the future. The idea of the past ultimately affecting the future was completely lost on them as they were actively contributing to minds being shaped and influenced by their lack of engagement with African history. BHM at school, in workplaces and many different institutions generally, from the testimonies I hear from those I know, does not serve its purpose which is to understand how our current lives are moulded by the past that predates today.
“History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be.” ~ John Henrik Clarke
BHM has always been about linking the past to the present and the future however, because BHM is presented as solely focusing on the past, we often find ourselves in these ‘cul-de-sac conversations,’ caught in dead ends, where we are effectively told to shut up because history is only about the past and apparently has no bearing on the modern day. It is ironic though because we can easily acknowledge how a family recipe is passed down for generations and impacts the way in which someone cooks or bakes something, or how “we would all be speaking German if we didn’t win the war”, but the past doesn’t affect the present. Or the future. Apparently.
“[White privilege] scares you into silencing yourself: you don’t get the privilege of speaking honestly about your feelings without extensively assessing the consequences… challenging it can have implications on your quality of life.” ~ Reni Eddo-Lodge
I describe myself as a ‘why kid’ because I’ve always asked why and it has helped me understand a great deal about the world around me. Asking why has made me imagine the world in which God envisaged for us, a place of love. Love – the doing word. We say love is a doing word but fumble on the actual act of doing anything. Race for Justice was published recently, a collaborative book that brings forth the histories and experiences of the leaders and congregations of different Christian denominations, and the churches’ interactions with race relations in Britain and Ireland. I ask why the vast majority of Christians are so uninterested in seeking the truth about race relations and its very real impact on all of our lives. The truth is racism blinds you and so many Christians “perish from lack of knowledge” because Christians reject knowledge. How can we then be God’s “priests” when “[we] have ignored the law of [our] God”? Hosea 4:6. The most important laws are to love God and love other people (Mark 12:30-31). Racism ignores an important law and the refusal to gain knowledge, which is the key to uprooting racism from your heart, is to ignore God’s law. As Christians, we should have a hunger in our bellies to love. To gain knowledge and love. That is what Black History Month is about.
“Faced with a collective forgetting, we must fight to remember.” ~ Reni Eddo-Lodge
BHM often does not do that, only specific histories are highlighted and a “we should all love each other” or “we’ve come so far” is thrown our way as a weak attempt to pacify the importance of the month in our race for justice. To educate! To acknowledge! To understand!
So I will tell you what Black History Month is to me. BHM is a time to ask questions:
- What were the Kingdoms of Mali, Songhai, Oyo, Great Zimbabwe, Kush, Ghana and more? How did those kingdoms rise and fall? How are those regions now and why?
- What were the African elite such as Mansa Musa doing and what were the lives like for the many farmers that lived in the same era?
- Why can you find Nigerians who bear the last name “Da Silva” whilst Yoruba culture can be found embedded in Brazilian culture?
- Why do both Igbos and Jamaicans say “ụ́nụ̀”?
- What was the Zanj Rebellion?
- Who were the Black Tudors and who was Septimius Severus and why were they in Europe?
- What was the Igbo Landing? Who were the Maroons of Jamaica, the Rebels in Haiti, and the Cimarrones in Latin America? What was their impact on the land, the changes in population and their location and why?
- What were the names of the rebellions on the continent of Africa against the enslavement of their own people?
- What were/are the names of inventors across the continent and in the diaspora? And how were/are they erased from our collective memory?
- What were the details of the series of uprisings in the 1980s carried out by Black British Youth, how were they organised and why?
- What was the role that Africans played in Europe’s World Wars or the Cold War and other conflicts? Why?
Black History to me is a time to pick up a book like:
- Race For Justice edited by Richard S. Reddie.
- When Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
- The Racial Contract by Charles W. Mills.
- Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
- Noor by Nnedi Okorafor.
- The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain by Beverley Bryan et al.
- Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala.
- Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson.
- Avengers of the New World by Laurent DuBois.
- The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter.
- A Blade So Black by L. L. McKinney.
- Race, Woman, Class by Angela.
- Black Legend: The Many Lives of Raúl Grigera and the Power of Racial Storytelling in Argentina by Paulina L. Alberto.
- Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy DeGruy.
Black History Month to me is a time to honour those who have come before me, I remember those who have persevered so that I could even write this article so freely. I recognise those who have been strong even though they shouldn’t have had to. And I look forward to young people like myself who have curious minds, like us all, and hope to fill those gaps of knowledge that have been lost in time, because I am certain we can reclaim them again.
Many of these histories are ignored and when they are acknowledged, learnt and understood, they are often mocked, not due to it being wrong but, because we can’t imagine a world where Africa ever contributed anything to humanity even though the examples are countless. The vast majority of us did not get the chance to envisage that world even though we live it, though fragmented. Black History Month to me gives us that chance; a specific month to key into a movement of re-education that has no expiry date. It is a yearly booster to prepare yourself for another year of gaining new knowledge.
Black History Month 2022 will be a time to uncover the mystery, to truly understand and highlight global history. Black History Month 2022 will be a time to piece together how exactly it is that we got to the world that we have now.
“If you are disgusted by what you see, and if you feel the fire coursing through your veins, then it’s up to you.” ~ Reni Eddo-Lodge
“Seek justice, correct oppression” (Isaiah 1:17)
