Don’t wait ’til February to discover your history

Well, it’s that time of year again. I don’t mean Mardi Gras/Girls Gone Wild auditions, Valentine’s Day, or the Presidents’ Day sales going on at your local Sears. It’s time to celebrate the achievements, remember the sacrifices, and honor the contributions that African-Americans have made to society.
Although I am all for Black History Month, there are a couple of things about how it is observed sometimes that aggravates me.
It never failed that when I looked on the program for a Black History Month function, there would be someone or a group reciting either “Phenomenal Woman,” “The Negro Mother,” “Still I Rise,” or the “I Have a Dream” speech. The repeating of those four works ad nauseam just drove me crazy for years. Do you mean to tell me with all the literature written by African Americans for hundreds of years, and those are the only four works worthy of reciting for a program? Last time I checked Gwendolyn Brooks and James Baldwin, to name a few, actually wrote some pretty interesting stuff.
Why is it when someone wants to tell you about “how it used to be”, they run and go put “Rosewood” in the VCR? Little do some folk know that the events such as those depicted in that movie actually happened in Colfax, La., and Tulsa, Okla.
All I am trying to say is don’t limit your knowledge of your heritage. Just pick up a book and do some research. You might just learn something.