Welcome to the History of a Beautiful People

February being black history month, I am reminded of the emotional pull that a couple of speeches from way back caused me. Being born white and having been raised in Alabama, I have seen the ways that racism is displayed by cowards desiring for there to be others who are beneath them in order to feel better about themselves and their own emotional and intellectual inequality to humanity. I have also seen the effects that an insipient, heartless evil such as this causes when a human is forced to endure it. Black History Month then becomes a chance to see the beauty of hopeful endurance and astonishing acts of unwavering heroism these people's story proclaims.

In light of this, the instances where one human purposefully causes another human to feel emotional pain, humiliation, oppression, depression, or a loss of self-esteem effects life as a whole and should be heard in civil courtrooms, I believe. Even now, however, some readers, lacking knowledge about the emotional suffering one must feel during those instances, are probably exasperated over reading yet another opinion on the eradication of racism. Of course, had we already succeeded in the ongoing struggle for peace and equality between the races, there would be no need for further opinion, and no need for the exasperated sighs currently filling some readers' ears.

The real history of the African American is astounding. Insurmountable obstacles rose and still rise hideously in the paths, the faces, of the members of an extraordinary, talented, and purpose-driven race of people. The many, many stories of survival, the quest for and possession of freedom, the peaceful protesting against even obscene cruelty, the emotional depth, and the unimaginable courage of this race fill the true literature and artistic content of this country.

Without a doubt, the African American race should boast of their beautiful contributions to humanity as a whole. Without exception, some of the most intelligent contributions should be claimed by them, as well, as seen in people such as African American Dr. Phillip Emeagwali, creator of the Supercomputer and a father of the Internet, who is said to be the most intelligent scientist alive today.

Other contributions to mankind which should be heralded as magnificent pieces of history are two speeches, spoken 100 years apart, both authored by exceptionally wise individuals. They are copied below with permission, the second of which is a portion of the long speech presented, and so befitting a read during Black History Month:

Ain't I A Woman?

by Sojourner Truth Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio
Delivered 1851

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of
kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man-when I could get it-and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

Black Power

by Stokely Carmichael

1966

It's a privilege and an honor to be in the white intellectual ghetto of the West. This is a student conference, as it should be, held on a campus, and we'll never be caught up in intellectual masturbation on the question of Black Power. That's the function of the people who are advertisers but call themselves reporters. Incidentally, for my friends and members of the press, my self-appointed white critics, I was reading Mr. Bernard Shaw two days ago, and I came across a very important quote that I think is most apropos to you. He says, "All criticism is an autobiography." Dig yourself. Ok.

The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question of whether or not a man can condemn himself. The black existentialist philosopher who is pragmatic, Frantz Fanon, answered the question. He said that man could not. Camus and Sartre don't answer the question. We in SNCC tend to agree with Fanon - a man cannot condemn himself. If he did, he would then have to inflict punishment upon himself. An example is the Nazis. Any of the Nazi prisoners who, after he was caught and incarcerated, admitted that he committed crimes, that he killed all the many people he killed, had to commit suicide. The only ones able to stay alive were the ones who never admitted that they committed a crime against people - that is, the ones who rationalized that Jews were not human beings and deserved to be killed, or that they were only following orders. There's another, more recent example provided by the officials and the population - the white population - of Neshoba County, Mississippi (that's where Philadelphia is). They could not condemn Sheriff Rainey, his deputies, and the other fourteen men who killed three human beings. They could not because they elected Mr. Rainey to do precisely what he did; and condemning him would be condemning themselves.

In a much larger view, SNCC says that white America cannot condemn herself for her criminal acts against black America. So black people have done it - you stand condemned. The institutions that function in this country are clearly racist; they're built upon racism. The questions to be dealt with then are: how can black people inside this country move? How can white people who say they're not part of those institutions begin to move? And how then do we begin to clear away the obstacles that we have in this society, to make us live like human beings?

Several people have been upset because we've said that integration was irrelevant when initiated by blacks, and that in fact it was an insidious subterfuge for the maintenance of white supremacy. In the past six years or so, this country has been feeding us a "thalidomide drug of integration," and some Negroes have been walking down a dream street talking about sitting next to white people. That does not begin to solve the problem. We didn't go to Mississippi to sit next to Ross Barnett (former governor of Mississippi), we did not go to sit next to Jim Clark (sheriff of Selma, Alabama), we went to get them out of our way. People ought to understand that; we were never fighting for the right to integrate, we were fighting against white supremacy. In order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody his freedom. A man is born free. You may enslave a man after he is born free, and that is in fact what this country does. It enslaves blacks after they're born. The only thing white people can do is stop denying black people their freedom.

I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people. For example, I am black. I know that. I also know that while I am black I am a human being. Therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people don't know that. Every time I tried to go into a public place they stopped me. So some boys had to write a bill to tell that white man, "He's a human being; don't stop him." That bill was for the white man, not for me. I knew I could vote all the time and that it wasn't a privilege but my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill to tell white people, "When a black man comes to vote, don't bother him." That bill was for white people. I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable o fallowing me to live where I want. You need a civil rights bill, not me. The failure of the civil rights bill isn't because of Black Power or because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities. That failure is due to the white's incapacity to deal with their own problems inside their own communities. And so in a sense we must ask, How is it that black people move? And what do we do? But the question in a much greater sense is, How can white people who are the majority, and who are responsible for making democracy work, make it work? They have never made democracy work, be it inside the United States, Vietnam, South Africa, the Philippines, South America, Puerto Rico, or wherever America has been. We not only condemn the country for what it has done internally, but we must condemn it for what it does externally. We see this country trying to rule the world, and someone must stand up and start articulating that this country is not God, and that it cannot rule the world.

Sources:

"Black History Month." Infoplease.
© 2000-2007 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease.
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