2008 Woodie Awards
Black history more than just a month
Erika Prins, Staff Writer
Issue date: 2/20/07
Last Updated: 8/9/07
How many influential African-Americans can you name? If you are like me, the names that come to mind are civil rights activists, musicians (especially rap artists) and basketball players. Oh, and Barack Obama.
Believe it or not, African-Americans have been doing more in the past 200 years than making (awesome) music and marching on the capital. Powerful African-American voices have influenced music (far more than just rap), literature, science, politics, athletics and more. African-American activism did not end with the era of Martin Luther King, Jr. and is not limited to racial issues.
Barack Obama is not the first African-American to influence politics. Since before they had legal permission to do so, African-Americans have been fighting for political changes including, but certainly not limited to, rights for their own communities.
African-Americans have been an influential part of American society for over two centuries, yet their role in American history is a side note in most textbooks.
As an immigrant from South Africa I felt disconnected from the Eurocentric, America-centric version of history I learned in school. I was being taught a history that did not belong to me - my roots do not lie at the Plymouth settlement. My family did not pass through Ellis Island on their way into the country. To me, all this is someone else's story.
Similarly, this is not the story of African-Americans. Unlike my family, though, many African-Americans' families have been in the United States since its inception. Their experience and influence is overlooked in our educational system, which is shaped by a white-dominated system for a majority-white society.
The history, literature, philosophy and religion we learn in school and in society is largely "white history." Consider, for example, the Whitworth Core program.
Supposedly the foundation to a liberal arts education, we are first inundated with the religious drama of white Europeans, then with the Rationalist Tradition, a survey of the deep thoughts of white men throughout history.
Believe it or not, African-Americans have been doing more in the past 200 years than making (awesome) music and marching on the capital. Powerful African-American voices have influenced music (far more than just rap), literature, science, politics, athletics and more. African-American activism did not end with the era of Martin Luther King, Jr. and is not limited to racial issues.
Barack Obama is not the first African-American to influence politics. Since before they had legal permission to do so, African-Americans have been fighting for political changes including, but certainly not limited to, rights for their own communities.
African-Americans have been an influential part of American society for over two centuries, yet their role in American history is a side note in most textbooks.
As an immigrant from South Africa I felt disconnected from the Eurocentric, America-centric version of history I learned in school. I was being taught a history that did not belong to me - my roots do not lie at the Plymouth settlement. My family did not pass through Ellis Island on their way into the country. To me, all this is someone else's story.
Similarly, this is not the story of African-Americans. Unlike my family, though, many African-Americans' families have been in the United States since its inception. Their experience and influence is overlooked in our educational system, which is shaped by a white-dominated system for a majority-white society.
The history, literature, philosophy and religion we learn in school and in society is largely "white history." Consider, for example, the Whitworth Core program.
Supposedly the foundation to a liberal arts education, we are first inundated with the religious drama of white Europeans, then with the Rationalist Tradition, a survey of the deep thoughts of white men throughout history.
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