Black_History

Black History What are your schools teaching during Black-History month' You may be surprised to learn that many schools have not taken Black-History as a challenge to explore different ideas, people, and aspects of history. Many have failed by teaching only the minimum required. Today's youth are missing a huge opportunity to understand Black-History so that the lessons learned can be applied to the present. Rosa Parks, the "Mother of The Civil Rights Movement", is one of the most important citizens of the 20th century. In December, 1955, she was tired from a long day of work. Under other circumstances, she would have probably given up her seat with no complaints. But this time Parks was upset and tired of the treatment the African-Americans were receiving every day from racism, segregation, and the Jim Crow laws in effect at that time. The bus driver had her arrested, and she was tried and convicted of violating a local ordinance. Parks' act started a citywide boycott of the bus system by African-Americans that lasted for more than a year. As a result of the Montgomery bus boycott in November of 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on transportation is unconstitutional. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta Georgia. King attended Morehouse College and went on to study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. King then deepened his understanding of theological scholarship after exploring Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent strategy for social change. In 1955 King married a young woman named Coretta Scott. They had two sons and two daughters. On December 5, 1955, after civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to comply with Montgomery's segregation policy on buses, African-American residents elected King president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association. During those days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, and he was subjected to personal abuse. In spite of all these difficulties, he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action. In those years he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the world by surprise. He delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington D.C. in front of 250,000 people. In 1963, King was named "Man of the Year" by Time magazine. At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King Jr., was the youngest man to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Sadly, on April 4, 1968, King was assassinated while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee. Harriet Ross was born into slavery in 1819, in Dorchester County, Maryland. Harriet was known as a black "Moses" because she believed that God selected her to lead her people out of slavery. In 1849, at the age of twenty-nine Harriet feared that she would be sold to the South; so she made her escape. She had faithfully gone down to Egypt and had delivered six-bondmen by her own heroism. Harriet's success was wonderful. Time and time again she made visits to Maryland on the Underground Railroad and made preparations for herself and her passengers. The idea of being captured by slave-hunters or slaveholders seemed to never enter her mind. Half of the time, she had the appearance of someone asleep and would actually sit down by the roadside and go fast asleep. In all, she is believed to have delivered approximately 300 persons to freedom in the North. She died on March 10, 1913, and was buried with military honors in Auburn, New York. Perhaps one of the best examples of past history would be Malcolm Little born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. Malcolm was a smart, focused student and graduated from junior high at the top of his class. By 1942 Malcolm was coordinating various narcotic, prostitution, and gambling rings. In 1946 he was arrested and convicted on burglary charges. During his seven-year prison sentence Malcolm studied the teachings of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and was converted to the Black Muslim faith. Muhammad taught that white society actively worked to keep African-Americans from empowering themselves and achieving political, economic, and social success. After being released from prison in 1952, he changed his last name to "X," which was a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders. By this time Malcolms' success had aroused jealousy within the Black Muslim hierarchy. In March of 1964 he terminated his relationship with the Nation of Islam and founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc. FBI agents still working in the Nation of Islam warned that Malcolm had been marked for assassination. Because he advocated the use of violence (for self-protection) and appeared to many to be a fanatic, most civil-rights leaders, who emphasized nonviolent resistance to racial injustice, rejected his leadership. At a speaking engagement in the Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965, three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage and shot him fifteen times at close range. The thirty-nine-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital; he is now buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. The four people cited above played a very important role in American history. They are not acknowledged like other significant figures whom are not of the African-American race. They are all examples of courage, determination, and an inspiration for all Americans to remain free. As we sit on the verge of war and argue in rage over its justification, these four people just wanted peace and to be created equal. Throughout history, slavery was justified in many ways, not least of which that people of color were somehow destined to be slaves. Hopefully, this essay has helped debunk these myths and injustices and illustrates the passion, intelligence, and bravery that all people exhibit in their pursuit of freedom and dignity. Bibliography: