100 Years of Negro/Black History
By Joseph Evans, Ph.D.
What vision did he have? Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s Negro History Week began in February 1926. Later, President Gerald R. Ford issued a formal message/proclamation in support of a legal observance of Black History Month. Although half a century had passed, the president encouraged Americans of all states and territories to recognize African Americans’ contributions to the history of the United States. The year was 1976.
Undoubtedly, the blood spilled by civil rights protesters made a moral difference and led to the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills into law (1964-1965). These modest gains toward justice and equality caused a national backlash that resulted in the assassinations (the murders) of Medgar Wiley Evers, El Malik El – Hajj Shabazz, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Francis Kennedy (1963-1968). These martyrs and other deaths may have led to a national reckoning and a kind of symbolic olive branch that inspired a moral obligation to African Americans and supporters of civil and human rights.
In1986, the United States Congress passed Public Law 99-244. This law was a national recognition of Black History Month. This took sixty years, which astonishes and underlines the power of systemic and systematized institutional racism that remains pervasive in this country. Nevertheless, Ronald Reagan, then President of the United States, issued Presidential Proclamation 5443. He stated its purpose was to make Americans aware of the “struggle for freedom and equal opportunity.” The proclamation recognized the law that obligated the president to call for national observation if not observance.
The wheels of justice move slowly. The Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus said, “The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small.” The philosopher’s metaphor points out that the mighty and powerful people who benefit from predatory ideals and advantages sooner or later are brought to justice. The metaphor undergirds the democratic ideals of justice and equality. In a similar fashion, King borrowed from Theodore Parker, an abolitionist, a Unitarian preacher, and towering pulpiteer, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” King understood that the God of the Universe functions in Kairos time (grace, anointing) and not necessarily in Chronos time (chronological, linearly). In other words, Divinity bends time.
This creates space for Divinity’s sovereignty. Black religionists must accept this as revelation. That is, Divinity is revealed through unlikely, uncomfortable, and too often, violent events, epochs, and episodes, which we rationalize to trace Divinity’s presence and personality through human affairs that make history. Thus, let us consider this lens to interpret our black historical journey. It’s uneven at times, but we can revisit the thorny past and see the future through a narrow window – the one that Carter G. Woodson used over the course of a sixty-year Odyssey. Woodson died April 3, 1950. He did not live to see the 1954 Board of Education versus Topeka, Kansas, United States Supreme Court decision. He did not witness 1963’s March on Washington, 1964’s- 1965’s Civil and Voter Rights bills become laws, the 1976’s-1986’s Formal message/proclamation, Public Law 99-244, or the Presidential Proclamation 5443. The Week became a Month thirty-six years after his death. What vision did he have? What vision do we have? Lean into it!
