Black history a shared history
Feb 25, 2008

PITTSBORO – Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Dubois, J. Phillip Randolph – these and many other names stand out in the history of African-Americans, according to Robert Barnes, Central Carolina Community College history instructor.

February is Black History Month and Barnes presented a historical view of it Feb. 20 at the college’s Chatham County Campus, where he teaches.

“Black history is American history,” Barnes said. “It should foster the understanding of culture and break down prejudices. We all have a shared heritage.”

Black History Month grew out of Black History Week, established in 1926 by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, now named the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History. Carter G. Woodson, known as the founder of black history, established the organization in 1915. A study of Woodson and his contributions is the ASAALH’s 2008 theme for Black History Month.

Barnes spoke on “Slavery and Its Legacy,” “Black Leadership,” and “The Creation and Cultivation of the Black Identity,” weaving together the interaction of African-American leaders and social and world events.

Slavery’s legacy was the “Jim Crow” era, which lasted from the end of the Civil War to the mid-1960s. It was a time of “total cultural degradation for African-Americans, a horribly oppressive time,” Barnes said.

Black leaders, such as Frederick Douglass, appeared first during the era of slavery. Douglass was a run-away slave who became an articulate abolitionist leader. He helped influence white anti-slavery societies in the North.

Black leadership grew in the decades following Emancipation. The leaders emphasized education, equal treatment, political empowerment, and an understanding of the history and contributions of African-Americans to the nation. In 1922, Woodson published a history of black Americans, “The Negro in Our History.” He advocated multiculturalism, the recognition that many cultures contribute to the creation of the “American” culture.

Slavery and Jim Crow had forced an identity of subservient, second-class citizenship on blacks, but increasing educational, social and historical movements brought great change, Barnes said. Even as the South became more entrenched in Jim Crow during the 1920s, many blacks were moving northward. Music, literature and art by African-Americans burgeoned during the Harlem Renaissance/New Negro Movement of the 1920s and 1930s.

In World Wars I and II, the almost all-black 92nd Battalion fought bravely in France and Italy. In Europe, they saw a society without racial segregation. Many brought the determination to achieve that back to the United States, Barnes said.

In the 1960s, the primary thrust was for total racial integration of society, he said. Leaders such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called for judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

During a question-and-answer period following the presentation, some in the audience said that having a month set aside to study black history causes separatism. They said black history needs to be more integrated into American history books.

Barnes noted that time always has to pass and official records have to become available in order for historians to gain enough perspective to write accurately about past events.

“We’re just getting access to the records,” he said, “but compare a history textbook from 1955 to one written in 2005 and you will see progress.”