Tuesday, February 10, 2009

February is ......



Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University, as well as director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Professor Gates is a world renowned authority on the African American experience in the United States. CLICK HERE for a little gem of a vid of 10 questions for him.

From the LA Bureau of NBC

"... It's possible that Black History Month may soon become a redundancy. Established in 1926 (as Negro History Week), Black History Month was intended to celebrate the underlooked contributions of black people to the establishment and growth of the United States. It's race-centric orientation isn't universally welcomed. See Morgan Freeman make Mike Wallace stutter when Freeman downplays the relevance of Black History month HERE.

The controversy and significance may now be moot. Racial animosity will always persist. Our nation seems to have turned a page, however. Black History Month 2009 is not just "Black History Month," but another month in history, in which black people will play a full, participatory, and now-leading role.

It's a good reminder that history isn't something that we just study from books or note on a calendar's page, but something that we should learn from, and make every day in the present."

From Kareem Abdul-Jabar blog

"A white friend of mine told me his 9-year-old son asked him, 'If February is Black History Month, then when is White History Month?' My friend replied, “The other 11 months.” That’s why I take this opportunity to use my blog to promote some of the most notable and influential African-Americans in American history. As much as I support and encourage the idea of Black History Month as a way of bringing to attention some otherwise overlooked and neglected historical figures, we need to make sure that Black History Month isn’t merely a closet that’s opened once a year to display these people as oddities, like a Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum.”




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