HISTORY: Role of blacks instrumental

Many times we think of history as a series of isolated events, without context, frozen in the past, with no relation to our real lives. But history is the evolving and unfolding saga of real life and real people with whom we share community and the planet we live in. 

So as our interneted, international, inter-dependent, globalized world gets smaller and more interconnected, there is more to see, to learn and to know about each other. Whereas history used to be written as a litany of wars and conquests, domination and submission, it has now matured to include the creative contributions of diverse ethnic and cultural groups within our One Humanity.

Each year, during the month of February, we have an opportunity to reflect on our diverse world and to focus especially on the many contributions to our lives of Americans of African descent, much of which history has been suppressed, distorted or ignored until recently. Black History did not begin and end with slavery in American, as many of us were taught. There were Negroes in Jamestown before the arrival of the Mayflower pilgrims and a rich African culture before that.

Here in our part of the world, freed black families came across the Oregon Trail with their former "masters" and formed their own schools, churches, farming communities, etc.

Some were hired into the northwest as strikebreakers in the mines, while others, unable to find work in the North, joined with pioneer families coming west to colonize this area. They became shopkeepers, teachers, cattle ranchers and cowboys.

To learn more about Black History you might want to review books and videos from your local library about famous African-Americans. How about including books of poetry by black authors such as Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African-American writer to receive a Pulitzer Prize? Others available at book stores are "Jefferson's Pillow," "Malcolm X Speaks," "Parting the Waters: the King years," "Black Rage," "The Bondage of the Free," "If They Come in the Morning," "African Diary," "The Troubled Heart of the Congo: A History, I May Not Get There With You: The True M.L.K Jr."

Happy reading and learning as we continue to build a community of strength, equality, peace and dignity for all.

MARIAN BRECKENRIDGE

Coeur d'Alene