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Open Black History Month Thread

Some starter links:


(for Twitter newbies/avoiders, you don’t have to have your own twitter account to read tweets in a hashtag or other timeline – just click on a user or hashtag link and start reading)


If you’re looking for some themed books/activities recommendations for youngsters:

A map of Africa striped in red, black and green with yellow text overlaid
Black History Month Blog Hop hosted by Multi Cultural Kid Blogs
To honor the amazing achievements of black people throughout the world, members of the Multicultural Kid Blogs are going to highlight a person or event in the Worldwide Civil Rights Movement and link up to the blog hop here. This way there will be one place for all to come and gather some of the history. We invite you to share your activities about the Civil Rights Movements as well here. To help you get started I thought I would share some general Civil Rights Movement picture books…


Lauren Chief Elk preempts the annual tantrum:


Does anyone else wonder whether the tantrum-throwers really truly cannot see the institutional power/dominance implicit in not needing to place an adjective in front of “History” in order to find historical works that feature or even include any information about the lives of people of one’s own ethnocultural heritage (or gender/sexuality etc)? I tend to conclude that the media pundits and political figures who trot the “bbbbut wheeeen is White History Month?!?” bilge out every year are knowingly cynical hypocrites myself.

Please use this thread to discuss any aspect of the Black History Month celebrations that has caught your interest.


12 thoughts on Open Black History Month Thread

    1. Sharon M, the reason the link button doesn’t work for you is that you’re not giving it any text to wrap the link around (so the links are there in the comment but invisible to readers because they’re not anchored to anything). Try writing the name of the piece you’re linking and using your mouse/touchpad to highlight that text, THEN hit the link button.

  1. This is rather depressing, but in honor of Black History Month, the local library is featuring a documentary about the heroic story of . . a white freedom rider activist. Not that there’s something wrong with white freedom riders, but come on – there’s got to be some local black person stories you can talk about from Utah history. There were black pioneer families, black military officers who served at Ft. Duchesne in the 19th century, a historical black community in Salt Lake City that goes back into the 1800s and still exists today, and so forth.

    They could talk about how discrimination for them got worse in the 1890s reflecting a national increase in racial supremacy. About how part of that eroded the black community in Salt Lake City, including the forced clearing of black residents from near the City and County Building, the increased segregation of facilities and housing, and the efforts by the local branch of the NAACP. Anything but watching a video about a freedom rider who isn’t even from Utah!

  2. In the last open thread I mentioned that they’re actually holding Black History Month events at Andrew Jackson’s plantation house.

    I’m honestly not sure who should be more insulted – Black people for slaves he kept, Indigenous people for signing the Indian Removal Act, or Jackson’s ghost for inviting “colored” people into his house! If that wasn’t enough, the website promises an “authentic experience for all of its guests”.

    O_o …I thought the idea was to get *more* Black people to visit!

  3. For anyone in the Birmingham, Alabama, area, the group See Jane Write is participating in the National African American Read-In. The theme for their read-in is “Phenomenal Woman,” focusing on works written by African-American women. It’s Thursday, February 20, at the Desert Island Supply Company.

  4. I love being black and I love all of the black history celebrations around this time of year. I enjoy how it has become a time for me, and my friends of all races, to reflect on the experiences blacks in America and abroad and to celebrate and discuss aspects of black culture that have inspired us (all) and have changed American and world history in general.

    However, one of the things I enjoy most about this time of year are the discussions that pop up about whether or not we should refer to this month as “black history month” or “african-american history month” or should refer to ourselves as blacks or african-americans in general.

    I really find all of the different reasons for why people should use one term versus the other so interesting.

    I, for one, prefer the term “black” because it is more inclusive of people whose ancestors may not claim the same history of descent from African-American bondage or civil rights battles but share the same racial characteristics nonetheless. I think of my afro-latino friends and people like the POTUS in these instances. We who share the same race, as American citizens, I think share alot of the same (present) experiences and have equally important and interesting contributions to American history as those who just claim to be descendants of African slaves in America.

    Although I know that a shared complexion doesn’t necessarily mean we all walk the same path EXACTLY; I just like the term “black” and “black history month” because I like thinking of black history and black contributions from people around the WORLD during this month, not just those born or living in America – especially my English and Australian brothers and sisters.

    That’s my two cents. Hope this babble doesn’t belong in “spillover”!

    1. (from the article) “What such a campaign implied, of course, was that images of formerly enslaved black children were not enough to spur many Northerners to boost their support for the war and aid freed people in need. Indeed, these images serve as a remarkable reflection of just how much race shaped many Americans’ stake in the bloody conflict.”

      So sad, but true, that for some people, the simple idea of slavery for ANY person is disgusting and a mind-twisting outrage is “not enough”. This reminds me of some of my “educated” and “civilized” friends who had a visceral reaction to Django and 12 Years A Slave claiming a renewed awareness that “yes, slavery was THAT bad” —– how could anyone forget?!? But it IS possible for some people to forget that and I’m thankful (I guess) for all and any efforts to make those facts “hit home” for everyone. Still. . . . le SIGHHHHHH at that necessity

  5. My city doesn’t talk about electing a Klan mayor in the 1920s or premiering “Birth of a Nation” earlier than that. Its school district was the first in the country to desegregate voluntarily but then a couple schools got burned down so…. but this is a place where it’s not uncommon to see “white pride” tattoos and twin lightning bolts, a symbol of Neo-Nazism.

    Don’t even get me started on how the district tried to name a new high school after MLK jr and the uproar about that spread nationwide.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/07/us/mostly-white-city-honors-dr-king-amid-dissent.html

    I’ll never forget that night. Seeing a packed room with two sides, White people on one side. Black people on the other. Well mostly.Media lights so bright you couldn’t see the people you were addressing at the podium But it came up in discussion with some friends and I. MLK jr High School turned out just fine by the way. It’s a great high school.

    But no, not much has changed since 1998 not in this corner of the world. Sometimes it doesn’t even look like anything’s changed on the surface never mind underneath it.

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