http://newdeal.feri.org/asn/asn12.htm#22 Black history entries!

I wish many more people could open the pages of black history and see how it must have been in their minds once they read the history narratives. Sure, many students had history classes in high school and college as I did myself. For most people, looking into history was just a class project at the time and it may be long forgotten by now.

But to take a look back and see how far the human races of all national organs have come is amazing how the times has changed and in most cases, for the better. The black race in particular, as I understand history, has made progress through the years in the United States Of America by attitudes changing in the way blacks were perceived by other races.

My parents were born in the 1800 hundreds, my father was born a slave and ran away for his life where he met and married my mom to gain the status as a working man rather than being a runaway slave. He was 22 years older than her and soon started a family. My mom being 15 years old already dipping snuff, caring for her only baby sister and her own first child while her parents tried to make a living as free people working in the fields as share croppers. They were allowed to keep a portion to feed their families. Animals of all kind were raised for food and some as work animals.

Those were the very hard days and their freedom was still limited. As I studied American history and the lives of black people in general, I am proud to have had my parents as I’m sure they were glad to have their parents too. So many were shot and killed or hung for doing or not doing just about anything. My mom told me stories of the people she saw being hung right in their yard from a tree and to the day she died was scared to death of White people. I look back on it now and see where she had post-traumatic stress disorder as we know it today. Now from my Army combat days I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD myself. What a coincident!

I want to thank our own Maria for bringing black history month front and center at stroke net with the many first people of black or African American decent to accomplish the things they were given credited for being the first of their race. I would be writing a novel to say all of what I have on this subject so I just want to make note of a few statements, sayings, or poems I studied over the years in a class room.

There are many as she pointed out but I want to add George Washington Carver as a pioneer in education and what it meant to all slaves, owners and the black race in general to farther their hopes of being able to one day read and write. There were others but Langston Hughes comes to mind for his “Poet Laureate of the Negro Race” in his later years. We were taught about Shakespeare in high school while not many writers of color were in many book in the early 50’s.

Sure, probably all Americans know of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his speech, “I have a dream” and the many streets in many major cities named in his honor after years of clout to prevent that from happening. Some city governments still refused and today many municipalities don’t recognize that day as a holiday requiring workers to be on the jobs. Very few will remember the poem, I Dream A World by Langston Hughes, that said: I dream a world where man, no other man will scorn, where love will bless the earth and peace its paths adorn! I remember that first part of his poem from years gone by long ago.

No doubt, education is what every child in American families today strive to get in the best schools available regardless of their race. Our first African American president is pushing to achieve those goals for all American people, I wish him success knowing first hand what a good education means to all of us across this wide world we live in and raise our families for higher standards!