Black History Month

The idea of having a certain date to celebrate the achievements by black American people started in 1926. At the beginning it was just a week (second week of February) of celebration known as ‘’Negro History Week’’ created by Dr. Carter G. Woodson (He established the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History in 1915). He said that this should always be in the second week of February because it was between the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Later, in 1976, it expanded and February was designated as the month of black history by the President Gerald R. Ford. Other countries as Canada and UK also devoted a month to celebrate it. Since then, American presidents designate February as Black History Month and each year has a theme, this year’s was: A Century of Black life, History and Culture.

During the month, people emphasize the promotion of the teaching of African American history in Schools and Universities. They establish history clubs and host lectures. Also, there are a lot of events that commemorates Afro-American. For example, in New York people make different events, some of them are free and in other ones you have to pay. They make talks, documentaries, live shows of dances and music, etc.

Some of the things that happened in February (Besides the birthdays of Douglass and Lincoln) :

  February 23, 1868:
W. E. B. DuBois, important civil rights leader and co-founder of the NAACP, was born.

 February 3, 1870:
The 15th Amendment was passed, granting blacks the right to vote.

  February 25, 1870:
The first black U.S. senator, Hiram R. Revels (1822-1901), took his oath of office.    

 February 12, 1909:
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a group of concerned black and white citizens in New York City.

 February 1, 1960:
In what would become a civil-rights movement milestone, a group of black Greensboro, N.C., college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter.

 February 21, 1965:
Malcolm X, the militant leader who promoted Black Nationalism, was shot to death by three Black Muslims.

(http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmintro1.html)

A man and his son watching the bus where Rosa Parks 

refused to give up her seat to a white person in 1955.

RON STALLWORTH: FEARLESS BLACK MAN

An amazing history from the 70's about the braveness of a black agent who dared to infiltrate himself into one of the most dangerous racist organizations; the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1979 this secret organization decided to recruit new members in the city of Colorado Springs. And they did not find a better option than making their request by an ad in the newspaper. Then the police of the city decided to use this contact for investigate them.

The agent Ron Stallworth, member of the Intelligence Police Department of Colorado Springs was designated to a very risky mission; to become an undercover infiltrate in the Ku Klux Klan group. And he accepted even though he was a black man.

Ron had to talk by telephone with the person in charge of the recruitment, and he pretended to be a white racist man. He said he felt injured by black people, and he also said he was so upset because her sister was dating a black man. Of course it was all fiction, but it worked. Curiously Ron gave them his real name, which was a very dangerous strategy.

Everything went well; Ron started to earn their trust without any problem, until the day they asked to know him in person. Obviously he could not go because he was black, so they sent a white police to replace him. This man had to practice imitating Ron's voice for weeks before the meeting.

Finally, after several days of investigation the police got with one of the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. He spoke with Ron by telephone and he said to him 'I can tell that you are a pure Aryan white man by the way you talk'. He definitely fell into the trap.

This secret investigation helped to reveal a lot of information about this racist organization, and thanks to Ron Stallworth the police could disband the Ku Klux Klan from Colorado Spring city. 

Here is an interesting interview where Ron Stallworth talks about his experience as an infiltrate.

How to solve the race problem?

The race problem is something that divides people in all countries, but we can see it more in the U.S. They created laws against colored people to make them slaves, and some centuries later they made new laws to stop slaving colored people. These facts are all part of history, even Americans made a month for this (Black History Month). Morgan Freeman talked about this month and he proposed that people have to stop talking about racism. Here's the interview:

WALLACE: Black History Month, you find... 

FREEMAN: Ridiculous. 

WALLACE: Why? 

FREEMAN: You're going to relegate my history to a month? 

WALLACE: Come on. 

FREEMAN: What do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month? Come on, tell me. 

WALLACE: I'm Jewish. 

FREEMAN: OK. Which month is Jewish History Month? 

WALLACE: There isn't one. 

FREEMAN: Why not? Do you want one? 

WALLACE: No, no. 

FREEMAN: I don't either. I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history. 

WALLACE: How are we going to get rid of racism until...? 

FREEMAN: Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. 

I think Freeman is right. If you start to talk about people as people, there won't be black and white people, only people. In this moment, lots of newspapers have stated things like "Black child murdered by police officer" instead of "Child murdered by police officer". Why are the words "black" or "white" written before "CHILD"? Is it THAT important? Why is more important the race of people than people itself? This is one way to end racism, how many ways do we have?

Afroamerican Discrimination still goes on… “Black Barbie Sold for Less Than White Barbie at Walmart Store”

I was surffing in the web when I found this; A photo posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com shows packages of Mattel's Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Teresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. The Teresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as being on sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Teresa dolls, meanwhile, retain their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their color.

When I read this I was shocked because its supoused that in our time, a time where The Pressident of United Stated is a black guy, afroamerican discrimination should be over, obviously, I was wrong…

I read many comments that blamed the supermarket, saying that the owner was White and racist, but actually, I think that the guilty is our, as a society, let me tell you why:

First of all, we have this “prototype of a perfect woman”, where blond, thin and tall is beauty, so someone different, isn´t perfect, and Little girls doesn´t wants to be unpretty, in a way, a girl wants to be reflected itself in a Barbie, they want to grow up and be like that little supermodel that their parents buy in stores.

How they will want to have a black Barbie if Every day we can see commercial creams and lotions for skin lightening? Even worse, I saw an experiment, where “black lilte girls” had to chose between a black and a withe doll and they chose the White doll because its “more beautiful”.

So discrimination begins with us, ourselves as a society teach to our children how to discrimitated, through tv shows, movies, musical videos, etc.

From my point of view, walmart has to put on sale this “black barbie” because it had less demand, but thats isn´t discrimination from the supermarket, it's, in fact, a result of our discriminatory society.

What did you think about this?...

Muhammad Ali: Nation of Islam

Many box lovers would know him by his victories in the sport. But he is more than that, he is a world wile recognized social figure who had a lot of influence on the 60's and 70's mostly.  Well known for his fight for black people, but he wasn't a Martin Luther K. pacifist, he never believed that we all are one pretty nation and we should live together in peace and love. He though that black and white people should be in different places and was against the racial mix.

In 1967, Muhammad Ali refused to go into the force army of US because he doesn't support to the Vietnam war, and citing his religious beliefs of Islam, he wasn't ok with killing brown skin people, they weren't his enemy.

He born as Cassius Clay, but he changed to Muhammad Ali because the previous name was a ''slave name'', he join to the Nation of  Islam Nation, it's a socio-politic religious organization based on the Islam fundamentals. It is quite different with the traditional Islam and has a polytheistic vision of Allah. Believe that Negros are superior to other races (not like traditional Islam who believe in all races are equal).

"No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters."

Free Breakfast for Children Program

In 1966 a black nationalist and socialist party began in the U.S celled the Black Panther Party (BPP), at first this organization had the purpose of protecting the black community by having black armed citizens monitor the police behavior, this was because in many times the community felt assaulted by them, so they felt the need to fight this police brutality.  Later on the Black Pathers Party wanted to do more for their community so they started to create really important social programs, one of the being the “Free Breakfast for Children Program”

The Black Panthers knew that even though the US was a wealthy and stable country, there was people out there in their neighborhoods starving. The free breakfast for children program started in a small church in California and was created for black and poor children whos family didn´t have enough money to feed the young ones. The party had the idea that every children needed to have a full stomach before they went to learn at school, they no longer wanted their people to live without proper health. It was also a good instance for the panthers to promote their political views and gain support from the community. This programe was so succesfull that it started to spread all over the country, which meant that the program fed over 10.000 children every morning.
The FBI was thretened by this social service because every day more and more people would support the Black Panther Party. Not agreeing with this, the FBI defined the program as a propaganda tool used by the panthers to inculcate their communist beliefs in kids, and in response they created a terror campaing against the BPP.


So did the BPP mix their political organization with social services just to promote themselves? To me they did this mainly for the welfair of people, of course they gained more followers for their party by having such a great service, but the FBI had no need to criticize this when they weren´t helping the community either.

1968 Olympics Black Power salute

Black Power is a political slogan it is used by African Americans in the United States. This movement was in the late 1960s and early 1970s and pursued racial equality, creation of cultural institutions and policies to defend, promote and fight for the interests of black society.

The ideological struggle was constant and followers of The Black Power movement needed something to call the world's attention, a scream to say "we are here". It was there when they were born the legends of Tommie Smith and John Carlos.

Sports Revolution

The October 16, 1968 the American runner Tommie Smith won the 200 meters at the Olympic Games in Mexico and the gold medal was awarded. The athlete clocked 19.83 seconds and set a new world record. The second place went to Australian Peter Norman -20.06 seconds and third place stood fellow American John Carlos -20.10 seconds. After the race was completed, the three went to the podium for their medals and when the singing of the anthem of the United States started, Smith and Carlos closed their eyes, bowed their heads and raised their arms to the top. The fists which had black gloves were closed strongly. The message was clear; full support for The Black Power. As they left the podium they were booed by the crowd. Smith later said, "If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black

The president Avery Brundage of International Olympic Committee (IOC) ordered to expel athletes from the Olympic Village, and at its discretion gesture was due to internal political conflict, which went against the Olympic values. When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the two athletes being expelled from the Games.

Why two great athletes they must leave aside his career for being Negro?