Black History Month

2 February 2015Ibrahim S, Whittall ‘15

50 years I ago I couldn’t stand before you today. 50 years ago I wouldn’t be allowed to stand before you today. A lot has changed in the past 50 years. My standing here today is a form of progress. The fact that Barack Obama can be President, the fact that Opera Winfrey can be one of the most powerful women in the world, the fact that Michael Jordan can be one of the most influential people in sports history is progress. There are two things the aforementioned people have in common: they are African and they are extremely talented. But for the longest time we believed that a person couldn’t be both. But we have come a long way. We have progressed! But before progress came change, and before this change came a movement. The Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks took a stand against segregation by keeping her seat in a bus crowded with discrimination and prejudice. The bravery and determination of the Little Rock nine proved to us that racism could be was something that could be overcome by the search for wisdom and a “greater perhaps”. The March on Washington led to the achievement of fair employment, voting rights and equal access to education for every American. As the years progressed, Africans in North America fought for what they deemed to be a right of every human. And we were all starting to move towards a new world. One “where we are judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character.” Now, I don’t only want to address the adversities faced by Africans, but also the response to this adversity. Though we as a race have been through many hardships, we were blessed with positivity. The ability to turn tragedy into celebration. 50 years ago, the oppressed sang lyrics of joy and hope in times of misery and despair. 50 years ago creative suffering was met by creative protest. And 50 years later we continue to protest against our suffering. The shouts for freedom, the pleas for equality and the fight for justice that reformed the 90s…those shouts still remain, and the pleas for equality and justice will always remain as we progress from our history to the next page of our human story. There will always be an upside and there will always be something to celebrate. History will be history. Whether we reserve a day for it, a month or a year. This year, Black History Month will begin on February 1st and run till February 28th. This month is marked not for rejoicing nor jubilation. But to seek the good in the bad, the lessons from our mistakes and remember where we started. But Black history does not need to be segregated as a separate history. Segregation is what we’ve been fighting all this time. African history is part of my history, but it’s also part of your history, and part of our world history. It’ll always be a part of our past, and it will help determine our future. Earlier I talked about progress. About how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go. As a human race we must progress from evils to lesser evils, to good. We must use the remnants of the past to build a better future. The dream that Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, and every single activist had…that dream is still alive and it lives on. Verily, as Mr. King stated, “Every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight, and all flesh shall see it together.” Ibrahim S, Whittall ‘15

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