Closing out Black History Month

​Black people of a certain bent are wont to observe wryly that Black History Month would be the shortest month of the year, given that America has routinely given us the shorter end of the shortest stick.

But I dare say that had Carter G. Woodson known that what he birthed and christened as Negro History Week back in 1926 would be enlarged and expanded into a full month, he would have picked a month with 31 days.

Of course, I think the reality is Black History is important enough to merit a year round focus, especially among people of color.

I think somewhere I have written about reading Carter G. Woodson’s fabulous Mis-Education of the Negro for the first time.[1] I was in my mid-twenties, possessed of an excellent formal education, but one that had omitted core pieces of black — and therefore American — history. It was like discovering a key to a mysterious and magical place that one has heard about but never seen. I was discovering Woodson’s insights on the black condition 40 years after he had written them, and they seemed as fresh as that day’s headlines. Scanning them again today, another 40-odd years later, they seem fresher than the latest tweet.

If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.

           — Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro

The American Legacy Mobile Exhibit of black history was in town today, graced by the presence of its founder and guiding light, Cleveland and Mt. Pleasant’s own Rodney J. Reynolds. It was a special treat to see. Among the artifacts were a host of American Legacy covers from its sixteen year print run, paraphernalia from Jackie Robinson’s rookie year in the major leagues, and my personal favorite, a pair of fire-engine red boxing gloves autographed by the Greatest himself, Muhammad Ali.

Rodney Reynolds, American Legacy founder and
publisher, with Cleveland Fire Dept. program director
Bilal Akram, left, and Cleveland photojournalist James Wade

We managed to squeeze in an interview with Rodney, founder and publisher of the American Legacy brand, amidst his official host duties. We will report more fully on our conversation tomorrow, but we'll close tonight with his observation that African Americans "are still a community that is in search of itself."

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[1] I just searched this site for it without success, but I did find this piece, written exactly six years ago today. I especially commend it to a new and very dear friend who recently commented obliquely on where I come from.