Читать книгу Reclaiming the Black Past - Pero G. Dagbovie - Страница 8

“Who made America?” queried W. E. B. Du Bois in the preface to The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America, first published in 1924. “Now that its foundations are laid, deep but bare, there are those as always who would forget the humble builders, toiling wan mornings and blazing noons, and picture America as the last reasoned blossom of mighty ancestors.” He continued:

America is America even because it shows, as never before, the power of the common, ordinary, unlovely man … We who know may not forget but must forever spread the splendid truth that out of the most lowly and persecuted of men, Man made America.¹

With great pride, the prolific editor of The Crisis was referring to the black “Man” and everyday African Americans as the “humble builders” who, in essence, contributed in monumental ways to America’s economic growth, democracy, and culture. Like scores of self-taught black historians who preceded him, Du Bois spotlighted and memorialized how generations of African Americans “made America.” For him, this story, the chronicle of African Americans’ contributions, needed to be publicized in the name of “truth.” Several years after The Gift of Black Folk was published, historian Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week. The “high priest of Negro history” echoed Du Bois’s search for the “truth” in describing the underlying objective of this celebration. Others felt the need to tell this story too. “Let truth destroy the dividing prejudices of nationality and teach universal love without distinction of race, merit or rank,” Woodson declared.²

Fifty years after Woodson founded Negro History Week, the then Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) was at the forefront of a movement to transform this weeklong celebration in February into a monthlong tribute. “In celebrating Black History Month,” Gerald Ford remarked in the first presidential observance on February 10, 1976, “we can seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” A decade later, the United States Congress passed Public Law 99-244 (1986), designating the month of February as being National Black (Afro-American) History Month. During Bill Clinton’s presidency, the celebration was renamed National African American History Month.

Most often called Black History Month (National African American History Month is a mouthful and comes across as being unduly formal and even portentous), today this annual commemoration constitutes a firmly established custom and institution in American life, especially among African Americans. During the twenty-first century, however, debates about the meaning and intention of this observance have proliferated. Countless people—journalists, political pundits, public intellectuals, educators, activists, and scholars—have wrangled over Black History Month’s role in American life, even contemplating whether it is still necessary and of value. As historian Daryl Scott, former president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, remarked in 2014, thrashing out Black History Month’s contemporary relevance and standing within American culture “is a cottage industry.”³

On the eve of Black History Month 2016, a reporter for MSNBC covering the most recent chitchat about its observance in social media outlets contended that “the debate around Black History Month really began in earnest 10 years ago” when Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman publicly raised objections to the celebration.⁴ Though Freeman’s comments undoubtedly reignited “the Black History Month debate,” the contemporary war of words about this popular custom are not recent, avant-garde, or cutting-edge: such concerns have been looming in the minds of and articulated by a medley of thinkers for more than seventy years. In actuality, much of what is now being conjured up about Black History Month was present in the discussions of Woodson and his colleagues in the early years when Negro History Week was practiced.

Using provocative and in some cases quite entertaining discussions of Black History Month as instructive and engaging points of departure, this chapter opens by exploring how this observance has recently been reconceptualized by a group of citizen journalists. To illustrate that contemporary and widely publicized diatribes against Black History Month are reminiscent of past grumblings, I historicize twenty-first century debates and controversies surrounding this established celebration. I also unpack President Obama’s ritualistic commemorations of the black past, recent “Black Future(s) Month” activities, and the paucity of scholarship on Black History Month. In conclusion, I consider Black History Month’s unresolved future.

FEBRUARY 20l6: A BLACK HISTORY MONTH TO REMEMBER?

By the middle of February 2016, many in the social media world were declaring that the 40th National African American History Month was the “best,” “greatest,” and “blackest” manifestation of this commemoration that the world had ever seen. One of the first bloggers to trumpet this conviction was Damon Young, co-founder of the popular daily digital magazine VSB (verysmartbrothers.com). In its own right, the title of his February 16, 2016, blog is alluring: “Kendrick Confirms It: February 2016 is the Blackest Black History Month Ever.” For Young, Beyoncé’s controversial half-time performance at Super Bowl 50 (one of the most watched programs in the history of the US television industry), Kendrick Lamar’s success and Brittany Howard’s closing performance at the 58th annual Grammy Awards, and Obama’s opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court Justice confirmed that “February 2016 is the blackest Black History Month ever.”

Throughout February 2016 and into March, countless bloggers—from unknown, amateur, personal bloggers to insightful public intellectuals—cosigned on Young’s observations, adding other events, black accomplishments, and symbolic triumphs to the mix. Some developed interesting and sometimes humorous lists justifying why February 2016 was a historic month for black America in blogs bearing titles like “5 Reasons This Has Been the Most Unapologetically Black Black History Month Ever,” “9 Reasons February 2016 Is the Blackest Black History Month Ever,” and even “29 Reasons This Was the Blackest Black History Month Ever.” When placed within the broader scope of African American history and the enduring black freedom struggle, most of the “reasons” that graced bloggers’ inventories were insignificant: Stephen Curry’s brilliance on the basketball court or Cam Newton’s swagger, the “Blackish” episode on police brutality, Kanye West’s announcement of his ingenious “The Life of Pablo” album, Morgan Freeman’s voice being used by the WAZE navigation app, the introduction of a black “American Girl” doll from the civil rights era, the release of several PBS-style black history documentaries, and so on.

CNN Digital joined the fray on the last day of the month. In an essay “From Beyoncé to Chris Rock: Best Black History Month Ever?” one multimedia journalist summarized what other bloggers before her concluded: “Even if we did not reach the absolute pinnacle of Black History Month, it’s been pretty memorable.”⁵

Why was there so much media attention and hype related to black America during the 2016 Black History Month commemorations? If we were to revisit past commemorations, we could certainly identify equally important achievements and landmark moments. As strange as it might sound, one of the reasons that the 2016 #BlackHistoryMonth movement deemed the 40th anniversary of this annual observance the “best,” “greatest,” and “blackest” Black History Month ever was arguably the byproduct of Beyoncé’s popularity in African American and US culture. Her and her crew’s superficial nods to the Black Panther Party during the Super Bowl half-time celebration evidently upset some of the older white viewers who were probably expecting an apolitical performance from this crossover megastar. On the other hand, younger African Americans, especially personal bloggers and public intellectuals in training, praised Beyoncé’s actions as forthrightly challenging the white power structure by unapologetically vindicating dimensions of black womanhood and, most explicitly, honoring the Black Panther Party, one of the most militant organizations in the modern black freedom struggle.

Of course, Beyoncé is not the only hip-hop generation icon to exalt Black Power–era activism. There exists an identifiable tradition of Black Panther Party revivalism in hip-hop culture dating back to the “golden age” of hip-hop and earlier. Public Enemy, KRS-One, Paris, Nas, Lil’ Kim, Dead Prez, Jay-Z, and Kanye West (just to name a handful) have all revered the Panthers in their lyrics and self-styling. Beyoncé was building upon hip-hop artists’ proclivity to salute the Panther’s “revolutionary” disposition. Yet, her status in US popular culture garnered much more attention for her nod to the Panthers than any of the acknowledgments of her predecessors. As feminist scholar bell hooks suggests in her tendentious critique of Beyoncé’s Lemonade album, “Beyoncé’s audience is the world and that world of business and money-making has no color.”⁶

Was February 2016 really such a historic Black History Month? Assuredly, previous generations of African Americans could have compelling reasons for claiming that the Black History Month commemorations and achievements of their times were equally if not more important.

For instance, in February 1977, businessman and civil rights activist Vernon E. Jordan Jr. announced to readers of the New Pittsburgh Courier: “There’s a degree of excitement about this year’s observation of Black History Month missing from previous ones.”⁷ For Jordan, Blacks were poised to make economic advancements, “regional unity” was on the rise, Martin Luther King Sr. had just delivered a memorable sermon at the Lincoln Memorial, and the television miniseries Roots premiered on ABC. A decade later in a write-up entitled “This Black History Month Is Different from Others,” editors of the Atlanta Daily World blazoned: “As we enter into 1987 Black History Month we hope the readers of your Daily World will take a broader view of the situation in the universe than ever before.” They continued, “This is a time in history that mankind hangs in the balance … This hour in history confronts mankind with the most decisive test in history.”⁸

Similarly, throughout the 1990s and into the twenty-first century, it was not uncommon for events during February to be advertised as the “best” or “one of the best” Black History Month programs ever. The editor of Diverse Issues in Higher Education heralded that Black History Month 2006 was “memorable” because of the plans to build the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.⁹ In 2009, numerous journalists declared that with the election of Obama, the commemoration had a new meaning and would undergo a facelift. And in 2014, one reporter even hailed Macy’s “Eras of Black Style” Black History Month receptions—held in ten major cities through the nation—“some of the best Black History Month events ever.”¹⁰

Online discussions of issues pertaining to black history, including Black History Month, are in many ways refreshing, at times engendering critical reflections and discourse among young African Americans born after the modern civil rights and Black Power movements. Michael Eric Dyson’s recent veneration of “an emerging black intelligentsia” in The New Republic is judicious.¹¹ Many of these social critics have creatively used the Internet to disseminate and popularize their ideas. In some respects, they have altered the black public intellectual landscape. At the same time, droves of today’s black bloggers suffer from presentism, failing to analyze contemporary phenomenon in historical contexts. This in part seems to be the case with much of the commentary surrounding Black History Month during 2016 and earlier in the twenty-first century.

QUESTIONING BLACK HISTORY MONTH IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Black History Month 2016 was discussed and debated for reasons beyond those identified by personal bloggers. On January 20, 2016, African American actress Stacey Dash appeared on “Fox and Friends” to discuss disgruntled African American celebrities who had recently called for a boycott of the Oscars because of an absence of black nominees—namely Jada Pinkett Smith, Spike Lee, Al Sharpton, and others who supported the #OscarsSoWhite movement. Dash denounced BET and its annual awards ceremony and the NAACP Image Awards, deeming the event self-segregation. While elaborating upon why BET should not exist, she added, “Just like there shouldn’t be a Black History Month. We’re Americans. Period. That’s it.” The prying host of the show egged Dash on by asking: “Are you saying that there shouldn’t be a Black History Month because there isn’t a white history month?” and Dash replied, “Exactly. Exactly.” Dash, who endorsed businessman and Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 election and was, from 2014 until 2017, a “semi-regular” personality on the Fox News Channel’s daytime talk show “Outnumbered,” was a hotly discussed newsmaker following her remarks. Unsurprisingly, many African Americans took to social media to criticize the former Clueless actress. Even her cousin, hip-hop mogul Damon Dash, condemned his kin’s comments, surmising that she was paid by Fox News to make such statements.

As brief and perhaps insignificant as they were, Stacey Dash’s statements spilled over onto a larger public stage. At the 2016 Oscars hosted by comedian Chris Rock, she was part of a skit in which she was introduced as being the new director of the Academy’s “minority outreach program,” an initiative that does not exist, of course. Dash announced, “I cannot wait to help my people out. Happy Black History Month.” This parody failed to make a splash with the Oscars’ primarily white audience probably because most were not aware of, or if cognizant took no particular stance toward, her statement about Black History Month. After all, some black people were the ones most baffled by Dash’s comments, not whites. While it is easy to dismiss Dash’s remarks, her brief observations did catapult Black History Month into the realm of social media and popular discourse, especially within black cyber communities. Yet, as Dash herself pointed out on her home page on patheos.com, she was not the first African American thespian to question the existence and purpose of Black History Month in the twenty-first century.

In a by now famous 2005 interview with Mike Wallace on the well-known news magazine 60 Minutes, Morgan Freeman called Black History Month “ridiculous.” Similar to Dash, Freeman whipped up the popular argument that there was not a month specifically designated to acknowledge white Americans’ historical contributions (a “White History Month”). In highlighting this, both failed to acknowledge that in US popular culture and educational institutions white American history and culture is predominantly used as the universal frame of reference, that white American historical icons are routinely venerated. As Afrocentrist Molefi Kete Asante has repeatedly stressed, notions of Eurocentric and white American universality have been largely accepted in US culture. Take, for instance, the images that appear on US currency. Though Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver appeared on US commemorative coins during the 1940s and in 2009 Duke Ellington became the first African American to be featured by himself on a US coin, history was made when it was announced that Harriet Tubman will become the first African American woman to be featured on a US paper note. A writer for the New York Times called this “the most sweeping and historically symbolic makeover of American currency in a century.”¹²

Black History Month, in essence, exists because it is part of a time-honored tradition. It persists by virtue of this and because of the continued lack of consistent attention given to blacks’ influence on American history and culture, especially in educational systems. If blacks’ contributions and concerns were taken up in a manner that was at least proportional to their impact on American life, then, theoretically, Black History Month would no longer be needed.

Moreover, those who bemoan the absence of a “white history month,” fail to recognize the truism that in the United States “every month is white history month” and that ten other groups of people have formally been awarded months: Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month (May); National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 through October 15); Irish American Heritage Month (March); Women’s History Month (March); Older Americans’ Month (May); Jewish American Heritage Month (May); Gay and Lesbian Pride Month (June); Caribbean-American Heritage Month (June); Italian American Heritage Month (October); and National American Indian Heritage Month (November 1990).

Why aren’t these months, and others, contested in the ways that Black History Month is? A similar trend can be noticed with the critiques on affirmative action. This now passé practice is often presented to the American public as a “black thing,” as if other groups have not benefitted from these policies.

Like others before him, and unlike Dash, Freeman called for an end to Black History Month because he believed that it denigrated the contributions that African Americans had made to US history and culture. “You’re going to relegate my history to a month? … I don’t want a Black History Month,” Freeman declared. “Black history is American history.”¹³ Though Freeman’s comments triggered a social media frenzy, his thoughts were not original, evoking the age-old and prevailing contributionist and patriotic tradition of black thought and historiography that dates back to the nineteenth century. Frederick Douglass’s steadfast belief in black contributionism was at the center of his consistent opposition—except at the outset of the Civil War—to the emigration and colonization movements during the nineteenth century. In his lengthy address “Lessons of the Hour” (1894), he underscored: “The native land of the American negro is America. His bones, his muscles, his sinews, are all American. His ancestors for two hundred and seventy years have lived, and labored, and died on America soil.”¹⁴ Echoing Douglass, countless twentieth-century black historians and activists argued that American history is incomplete without the contributions of African Americans. For decades, African Americans have argued that one month is “not enough” to recognize black American history. Negro History Week founder Carter G. Woodson himself knew that one week was not sufficient for memorializing the black past.

The beliefs of Freeman, Dash, and others that Black History Month segregates black people has been taken up by conservative spokespersons who see little value in the observance and create calculated arguments to jettison it. Take, for instance, an article published in the conservative semi-monthly magazine the National Review in 2013 entitled “Against Black History Month” by staff writer and author of the popular The Conservatarian Manifesto (2016). He begins by glossing over why Woodson created Negro History Week and then fast forwards to the present, marveling at how much things have supposedly changed. For him, unlike during Woodson’s times, black history in the age of Obama was no longer snubbed in American society. He asserts that Freeman made his case “perfectly” and argues that Black History Month contributes to the swelling separation of the black past from the American experience, counters the “melting-pot” ideal, further segregates black people, is essentially antiquated, and, in the end, does nothing to address the “racial problems in America.”¹⁵ His pie-in-the-sky solution is to magically have curriculums in K-12 schools incorporate the black experience. If only the remedy were this simple!

Freeman’s comments made an impression beyond conservatives. In mid-February 2012, Shukree Tilghman’s documentary More Than a Month premiered on Independent Lens. The then twenty-nine-year-old filmmaker told one interviewer that Freeman’s sentiments “resonated” so much with him that he was “determined to set out to find the truth about Black History Month.” According to Tilghman, one fundamental question guides his documentary: “What does it mean that we have a Black History Month?” Like others before him, he sought to challenge Americans to “question why black history is taught as if it is somehow separate from American history.” He carried on, “I hope as a country, we can imagine an America where Black History Month isn’t necessary.”¹⁶ The existence of Black History Month, in Tilghman’s estimation, contributes to the othering of African Americans.

Approximately one hour in length, Tilghman’s film begins in 2010 with him traveling throughout the East Coast interviewing a range of people—from his parents to history professors and educators to high school students. One of the most compelling scenes from the documentary occurs when Tilghman, in the tradition of comedy sketches from The Chris Rock Show, engages with the public in the streets, walking around wearing a sandwich board sign with “END BLACK HISTORY MONTH” on the front and “BLACK HISTORY IS AMERICAN HISTORY” on the back. Tilghman’s overarching argument is similar to earlier ones—that African American history is American history and should not be separated from mainstream representations of American history. Despite his recycling of conventional beliefs still lingering in the collective conscience of much of black America, More Than a Month is the first major film that focused on Black History Month and consequently received plenty of attention.

Not only was the documentary screened at various venues during 2012 Black History Month celebrations, but Tilghman was interviewed numerous times and leading newspapers reviewed the documentary. In February 2012, the New York Times published a critical review of Tilghman’s opus. The reviewer dubbed the documentary “meandering and indecisive” with such a “waffly ending that you can no longer tell whether he favors or opposes Black History Month.” For this critic, Tilghman is “never less than a genial guide to the thorny question he raises from the start.”¹⁷

Obviously, PBS and Independent Lens viewed Tilghman’s work differently. For the sponsors and producers, More Than a Month is a useful teaching tool. Pedagogical devices—a “Discussion Guide” and “Educator Guide: Viewing and Discussion Guide”—were offered as supplements. The “Discussion Guide” includes a statement from Tilghman, a concise summary of the film, resources, discussion questions, and “suggestions for action.” While the discussion questions could provoke critical thought and the “suggestions for action” echo practical exercises that Woodson put forward during Negro History Week celebrations, the recommended resources are lacking and problematic. For instance, readers are encouraged to learn about Woodson’s life and career by perusing the overview of “the father of black history” on Wikipedia! None of the available published scholarship on Woodson is cited by PBS and Independent Lens. Aimed at middle school and high school students, the “Educators Guide” provides a host of useful tips for viewing the film, pointing out specific time-codes where the documentary can be stopped and unpacked with compelling inquiries.

The significance of More Than a Month cannot be ignored: it helped rekindle debates about the deeper meaning of Black History Month. Yet it appears as if Tilghman began to dislike the attention that his controversial film afforded him; he grew weary of being at the center of the debate about Black History Month’s relevancy. In February 2014, he declined an invitation to be interviewed by Larry Copeland. “Unfortunately, I’ve all but retired from talking about Black History Month. I got tired, man,” Tilghman told this reporter; “being the face associated with ending Black History Month is a peculiar burden.”¹⁸

RESERVATIONS ABOUT NEGRO HISTORY WEEK CELEBRATIONS

There is a concrete tradition of questioning the purpose of Black History Month that emerged decades before Tilghman, Freeman, Dash, and others offered their sentiments in the twenty-first century. In fact, this skepticism predates the establishment of this now monthlong celebration. From 1926 until 1950, the halcyon days of Negro History Week, African American activists, schoolteachers, and movers and shakers in the ASNLH plainly deliberated over how to most effectively carry out Negro History Week activities. In the pages of The Journal of Negro History, The Negro History Bulletin, and leading black newspapers, Woodson routinely shared his opinions on the most appropriate commemorative practices. Beyond advocating that the weeklong event eventually be transformed into “Negro History Year” (code words for the complete incorporation of the study of black history in American educational institutions), it is not surprising that Woodson never doubted his brainchild’s function or aims. However, some within the black community did not always share his optimism or see eye to eye with his strategy.

Ideally, Woodson wanted Negro History Week to become what in 1935 he first referred to as “Negro History Year, the study of the Negro throughout the school life of the child.”¹⁹ In this sense, Negro History Week was meant to serve as a stepping-stone to the sought-after unabridged introduction of black history into secondary and high school curricula by African-American activists. By the late 1940s, Woodson still emphasized that he wanted this weeklong celebration to become “what it should be—Negro History Year.”²⁰ Woodson did not discuss the logistics involved in converting Negro History Week into “Negro History Month.” Others did, leading to the first Black History Month proclamation in 1976. While they did not disagree with Woodson’s overarching mission, some black history enthusiasts during the era of Jim Crow segregation wanted his weeklong celebration to be transformed into a monthlong testimonial.

As early as 1932, members of the Bethel AME Church in Leavenworth, Kansas celebrated “Negro History Month” with “splendid programs.”²¹ Most likely unbeknownst to Woodson and the ASNLH, this congregation held this celebration in March. At the dawning and concluding of the 1940s, announcements in the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Daily Tribune, and Masses and Mainstream, respectively, dubbed February “Negro History Month.”²² In 1950, members of the Monroe Laboratory School in Washington, DC, became among the first to call for the observance of “Negro History Month” instead of Negro History Week with the blessings of the ASNLH. “The ever increasing interest of teachers, pupils and parents in Negro History led to the celebration of Negro History Month, instead of the usual one week,” an editorial in the Negro History Bulletin reported.²³ During the remainder of the 1950s, the notion of a “Negro History Month” was sporadically evoked.

In 1951, Negro History Week was observed from February 11–18 and on February 17, 1951, “Negro History Month” by name was mentioned in the New York Amsterdam News.24 A year later, a writer for the Chicago Defender argued that a monthlong celebration would better serve the black community. “‘Negro History Week’ could easily and profitably become ‘Negro History Month,’ for Old Negroes as well as Young Negroes pay so little attention to, and know so little about the history of the American Negro,” a passionate Rebecca Stiles Taylor proclaimed. “Many college Negroes have knowledge of less than one half dozen historical Negro characters of yesteryears.”²⁵ Perhaps in what was a typo, in 1953 a writer for the New York Times entitled an editorial “Negro History Month Is Set” while discussing New York Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri’s support of the ASNLH and its Founders Day celebration.²⁶ Four years later, the president of Texas College, a historically black college founded in 1894 in Tyler, Texas, offered an “official proclamation” designating February as “NEGRO HISTORY MONTH.”²⁷

Others more directly sought to revise and explicitly challenge Woodson’s weeklong celebration. One of the oldest African American newspapers founded in Harlem in 1909, the New York Amsterdam News, served as a spirited forum for publicizing and contemplating Negro History Week. In a 1926 editorial, “Negro History Week a Popular Idea,” the paper welcomed this celebration, observing: “It seems that the public has been awaiting such an idea.”²⁸ Throughout the ensuing decades, this popular newspaper annually endorsed this event with recurring editorials in the 1950s like “Why Negro History?,” by covering local and national events and festivities, and by publishing essays by Woodson in which he enthusiastically explained Negro History Week’s primary objectives.²⁹

During the second quarter of the twentieth century, Negro History Week was called into question by New York Amsterdam News writers, namely longtime managing editor S. W. Garlington. In a 1943 editorial, Garlington remarked that the celebration “is scheduled at the wrong time” because of the existence of other competing weeklong celebrations. Without mincing his words, he had the nerve to call out Woodson (“PAGING DR. CARTER G. WOODSON!”) to change the date of Negro History Week. “Future observances of NHW should not (consciously or unconsciously) compete for attention,” Garlington proclaimed. “Now Dr. Woodson, don’t bring me that line about losing face if you change the date.”³⁰

Several years later in the midst of World War II, one of Garlington’s New York Amsterdam News co-workers posited that Negro History Week celebrations should be refashioned into a more deliberate educational reform movement “for a new world order.” The plea continued:

Negro History Week, 1945, should have a deeper meaning, a greater purpose, and a more universal significance if the war aims of the United Nations are to be anything more than temporary morale-building propaganda or hypocritical and deceptive exhortations … Negro History Week should, therefore, mean a new and keener awareness of the need for sweeping educational reform from the kindergarten to the university.³¹

It appears that Garlington abandoned his 1943 plea to Woodson as subsequent discussions of Negro History Week in the New York Amsterdam News maintained that February was a logical time for the celebration. He did not, however, totally refrain from criticizing the merits of Negro History Week. For instance, on February 11, 1950, in a broadcast on WEVD (a radio station founded in 1927 by the Socialist Party of America and named in honor of Eugene Victor Debs), the longtime managing editor of the newspaper unequivocally pronounced: “It is time to get rid of Negro History Week celebrations.” Preceding later Black History Month detractors, Garlington argued that the African American past needed to be recognized as constituting an essential component of American history. In an unsigned editorial perhaps written by Garlington himself, his ideas were cited and summarized. “We want American History presented as the total record of the past activities and experiences of all grounds and races. We do not want it presented from any special angle.” The editorial added, “What the Negro does is part of America and must be fitted into the American historical pattern or it is not the nation’s history.” Unsurprisingly, the editorial fully endorsed Garlington’s views, stressing that “so-called standard” US history textbooks were biased and needed to be revised, that studying and honoring black history by itself amounted to “side show or Jim Crow history,” and that, ultimately, the “integration” of all American groups into American historical narratives would require sustained reform in the shape of “moral suasion as well as the coercive force of law and the enforcement of law.” The editorial did, nonetheless, conclude on a positive note, praising Woodson and the ASNLH for their efforts to create a “larger, broader balanced history for all Americans.”³²

Garlington’s outlook did not entirely shape this leading newspaper’s outlook on Negro History Week. The February 18, 1950, edition that showcased his comments also featured several different takes on the usefulness and impact of the annual celebration. In an essay entitled “Record of the Negro Past Now Being Kept,” Constance Curtis exalted Negro History Week, Woodson’s vision and commitment, and the undertakings of the ASNLH and its local New York City branch.³³ However, Chollie Herndon reported that judging by the lack of participation from colleges in New York City, Negro History Week “is a flop.” At the twentieth century’s midpoint, the New York Amsterdam News conducted a survey to measure the city’s educational institutions’ Negro History Week activities and reported that “69 percent of the colleges said they had never heard of the week.” Though the newspaper insinuated that the local ASNLH branch could have improved its publicity efforts, in the end, Herndon concluded that “the failure of Negro student organizations to function successfully accounted for the dearth of Negro History Week activity.”³⁴

As iconoclastic and controversial as Garlington’s comments were (more than four decades later, even the renegade Harold Cruse said that he was “shocked” by the anti-Black History Month remarks in the New York Amsterdam News), it does not seem as if they were widely considered beyond the newspaper’s readership. The fact that the weekly student newspaper of Columbia University, the Columbia Daily Spectator, reported on Garlington’s observations is thought-provoking. Apparently, the white staff deduced that his argument was valid, but underscored that Negro History Week was still relevant.³⁵ This issue also included a “letter to the editor” from Clarence B. Jones, who graduated from Columbia in 1956 and would later become a speechwriter and adviser for Martin Luther King Jr. The chairman of the CU Young Progressives stressed the importance of the observance. “Negro History Week is necessary because the role of the Negro in American history is either ignored or distorted in our schools,” Jones wrote.³⁶

On the 25th anniversary of Negro History Week, the ASNLH did not overlook dismissals by Garlington and a “strange assortment” of other “detractors” of their prized festivities. Prolific journalist, instructor and teacher trainer at Hunter College of The City of New York, and specialist in African and Middle East affairs, Marguerite Cartwright, authored a lengthy essay in the Negro History Bulletin in which she systematically quashed those who called for the end of Woodson’s beloved creation. According to Cartwright, during February 1950 the “pros and cons of Negro History Week were heard everywhere, from the breakfast table to the barbershop, from the press, over the airways.” This staunch defender of Negro History Week pointed out, “Everyone was qualified to take a stand and everyone did.”³⁷ Cartwright’s assessment was in many regards ahead of its times, foreshadowing future defenses.