Frederick Douglass with his second wife (seated) and her sister |
THE BALANCING ACT/ENACTMENT OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH…
William Lloyd Garrison, Abolitionist and Philanthropist |
A very wise woman who was my boss once said to me, “There
are always two sides to every story”.
Ever since that time I have pondered the meaning and application of that
truth to nearly a billion circumstances.
Many Afrocentric’s complain, and with a great deal of validity, that the
black man’s contribution to civilization has been whitewashed out of the
history books igniting a bold and heroic quest to re-write most of world history
from a more inclusive perspective.
Although America has always been a fusion of cultures and ethnicities' somehow the most difficult issues of race have always come down to black and
white. The struggle for civil rights, as
we all know has been a fight shared by soldiers in an army of white and black social
provocateurs. If we are going to tell
the story with any degree of accuracy we must begin to refocus on the movement
as a whole and not isolate its heroes and heroines in effect removing them from
their “Raison d’etre”!
For example, how can you tell the story of Frederick
Douglass without including John Brown and Lloyd Garrison and how can you even
think about Harriet Tubman or Sojourner Truth without taking into consideration
the friendship they shared with Lucretia Coffin Mott. In the 18th and 19th
centuries many black abolitionists were so intimately associated with white
abolitionists, philanthropists, suffragists and humanitarians that they created
a global network that has been virtually forgotten.
Let us therefore begin the task of retelling the story of
Civil Rights in America as a brilliant shared brotherhood. Let us remember the movement and not just the
shakers!
FIN
Written by: Bigdaddy Blues
Dedicated to: Rochelle Joseph, "the muse"...
2-4-14
No comments:
Post a Comment