Why February was chosen as Black History Month Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/01/1075623826/why-is-february-black-history-month “February was chosen primarily because the second week of the month coincides with the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was influential in the emancipation of slaves, and Douglass, a former slave, was a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement, which fought to end slavery. Lincoln and Douglass were each born in the second week of February, so it was traditionally a time when African Americans would hold celebrations in honor of emancipation, Kaplan said. (Douglass' exact date of birth wasn't recorded, but he came to celebrate it on Feb. 14.)” “It was Carter G. Woodson, the "father of Black history," who first set out in 1926 to designate a time to promote and educate people about Black history and culture, according to W. Marvin Dulaney. He is a historian and the president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Woodson envisioned a weeklong celebration to encourage the coordinated teaching of Black history in public schools. He designated the second week of February as Negro History Week.”
Bishop Richard Allen Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Allen_(bishop) “(February 14, 1760 – March 26, 1831) was a minister, educator, writer, and one of America's most active and influential Black leaders. In 1794, he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent Black denomination in the United States. He opened his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[2] Elected the first bishop of the AME Church in 1816, Allen focused on organizing a denomination in which free Black people could worship without racial oppression and enslaved people could find a measure of dignity. He worked to upgrade the social status of the Black community, organizing Sabbath schools to teach literacy and promoting national organizations to develop political strategies.” “He was born into slavery on February 14, 1760, on the Delaware property of Benjamin Chew. When he was a child, Allen and his family were sold to Stokley Sturgis, who had a plantation. Because of financial problems he sold Richard's mother and two of his five siblings. Allen had an older brother and sister left with him and the three began to attend meetings of the local Methodist Society, which was welcoming to enslaved and free Black people. They were encouraged by their master Sturgis although he was unconverted. Richard taught himself to read and write. He joined the Methodists at 17. He began evangelizing and attracted criticism from local slave owners. The slave owners were angered by his actions. Allen and his brother redoubled their efforts for Sturgis so that no one could say enslaved people did not do well because of religion.” LOCAL HISTORY NOTE: The Bethel AME Church, located on Park Avenue across from Huntington Hospital, is the oldest African American Church in Huntington, having been founded in 1843. The first Bethel church was in a building that was purchased from the Huntington Methodist Church on property that was adjacent to the cemetery of St. John’s Episcopal Church of Huntington.
Madame C. J. Walker (1867-1919) Source: https://madamcjwalker.com/books/#books The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Madam C. J. Walker was orphaned at seven, married at fourteen and widowed at twenty. She spent the better part of the next two decades laboring as a washerwoman for $1.50 a week. Then—with the discovery of a revolutionary hair care formula for black women—everything changed. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: building a storied beauty empire from the ground up, amassing wealth unprecedented among black women and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism. Along the way, she formed friendships with great early-twentieth-century political figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington.
The Harlem Hellfighters – 369th Infantry Regiment “The Hellfighters, the most celebrated African-American regiment in World War I, confronted racism even as they trained for war, helped bring jazz to France, then battled Germany longer than almost any other American doughboys. (Their nickname’s origin is unclear: it was possibly coined by enemy soldiers, the American press, or both.) Like their predecessors in the Civil War and successors in the wars that followed, these African-American troops fought a war for a country that refused them basic rights – and their bravery stood as a rebuke to racism, a moral claim to first-class citizenship.” “They were mostly New Yorkers, the first black troops in their state’s National Guard. After years of lobbying by civic leaders from Harlem, Manhattan’s celebrated black neighborhood, Governor Charles Whitman finally formed the all-black unit, first known as the 15th New York National Guard Regiment, in 1916, as the U.S. prepared for possible entry into World War I.” “The majority of the enlistees actually came from Harlem, which was home to 50,000 of Manhattan’s 60,000 African-Americans in the 1910s. Others came from Brooklyn, towns up the Hudson River, and New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Some were teens, some in their mid-40s. Some were porters, doormen, or elevator operators, some teachers, night watchmen or mailmen. Their motives included adventure, patriotism and pride. “To be somebody you had to belong to the 15th Infantry,” wrote enlistee Arthur P. Davis of Harlem.” “Renamed the U.S. 369th Infantry Regiment, they were assigned to the U.S. Army’s Services of Supply, unloading ships and cleaning latrines, a typical assignment for African-American soldiers at the time. But General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe, soon offered the 369th to the French army to solve a political problem. The French and British were demanding American reinforcements for their badly depleted divisions. Pershing, under orders from President Woodrow Wilson, had insisted on forming an independent American force in France, to preserve troop morale and accountability for American casualties and to strengthen Wilson’s clout in eventual peace talks.” “Yet Pershing made an exception for the black soldiers of the 369th, reassigning them to the French on March 10. (Pershing’s attitudes toward black troops were complicated; he served with the all-black 10th Cavalry in 1895, from whence he got his nickname “Black Jack,” but wrote in his 1931 memoir that black soldiers needed more training because of “lower capacity and lack of education.”) Hayward, who had lobbied Pershing to let his troops fight, captured the ironies of the general’s decision in a letter. “A fairy tale has materialized,” wrote Hayward. “We are now a combat unit…. Our great American general simply put the black orphan in a basket, set it on the doorstep of the French, pulled the bell, and went away.” “After three weeks’ training by French troops, the 369th entered the combat trenches on April 15, 1918 – more than a month before the American Expeditionary Forces’ first major battle. For three months, as the German spring offensive raged dozens of miles to the northwest, the 369th manned the front line and fought occasional skirmishes, including Johnson and Roberts’ battle against the German raiding party.” “Histories of the regiment say the troops spent 191 days on the front, more than any other Americans.” “Spending over six months in combat, perhaps the longest of any American unit in the war, the 369th suffered approximately fifteen hundred casualties but received only nine hundred replacements. Unit histories claimed they were the first unit to cross the Rhine into Germany; they performed well at Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood, earning the epithet “Hell Fighters” from their enemies. Nevertheless, the poor replacement system coupled with no respite from the line took its toll, leaving the unit exhausted by the armistice in November.”
BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Institutional Resistance and Work That Remains to be Done The prior three pieces on Black History Month introduced individuals who conquered almost insurmountable obstacles just because they were black living in a white mainstream culture in America to accomplish amazing things and inspire generations to follow. There are many more. But, first, what role did our social institutions play in the lives of African Americans emerging from slavery and searching for identity and acceptance? Let’s look at our Episcopal Church. The story of St. Philip’s Church in downtown New York City is illustrative. Beginning in 1809, the black congregation attending separate services at Trinity Church on Wall Street decided to become independent. It took ten years for them to build a church, have it consecrated and incorporated as an Episcopal congregation and ordain one of their own members, Peter Williams Jr., as their liturgical and spiritual leader. The fledgling church overcame many struggles along the way. A fire burned the building to the ground; it was ransacked and nearly destroyed during the 1834 anti-abolitionist riots; but the humiliation of its rector at every turn by the diocesan leaders and their refusal to grant the church full membership for over 35 years may have been its worst tragedy. These (white) leaders treated every request from St. Philip’s for full inclusion with patronizing contempt, culminating in the public response by one convention that, because of their color, the people of St. Philip’s were “socially degraded, and . . . not regarded as proper associates for the class of persons who attend our Convention”. St. Philip’s, however, persevered. And, on a Thursday afternoon in September of 1853, the second day of the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, three black men, the delegation from St. Philip’s, walked into St. John’s Chapel, an Episcopal parish operating under the auspices of Trinity Church, and took their seats among some five hundred wealthy and powerful white men. The question of the delegation’s admission had come to a vote finally that afternoon and the convention could no longer deny them the right to attend. Like the white delegates, the three black delegates were accomplished in business, but that was of no consequence to the vast majority of the men in attendance. What mattered to them was that these three men in their midst were black, representing a black church that had been consecrated by an Episcopal bishop and legally incorporated as an Episcopal parish, only the second such congregation in the country, after St. Thomas in Philadelphia. Apparently, the existence of the church was not itself the problem - in fact, they were proud of how the Episcopal Church had reached out to bring the gospel to such “unfortunates”. What was disturbing to these white clergy and laymen was that they would have to conduct their church business as equal partners with these black delegates. So, although the vote to admit the delegation that day was overwhelming, few of the voters actually welcomed their presence. These three men cannot have felt very comfortable walking into that church. At the same time, they must also have felt a sense of triumph, albeit a small triumph in knowing that even in the church it was only their unrelenting demand for their right to full participation that won out against the fierce protection by white leaders of their entrenched hierarchy. It had no real effect beyond the confines of the parish, however. Nothing changed in society at large and their fellow Episcopalians felt little need to treat them as any less isolated or separate than before. And so, American society in 1853 remained unchanged. By then, slavery was legally confined to the Southern states and Northerners liked to bask in a sense of self-righteousness that they were free of that “peculiar institution”. Few African Americans living in New York City, however, felt Northern governments had much right to feel proud. Prejudice continued to be the societal norm in both big and little things. African Americans were permitted on the public horse-drawn trolleys and omnibuses only at the whim of the driver or conductor. They were excluded from restaurants, theaters (unless the balcony was designated as separate seating for “colored persons”), and cultural and professional institutions. They attended segregated schools and, as in the case of St. Philip’s, they largely established their own churches rather than attend the separate services to which they were relegated by white congregations. They developed their own fancy balls, elegant restaurants, cultural institutions and a growing bourgeois class. Their right to vote, however, was encumbered by residency and property requirements significantly more difficult to meet than those in effect for whites. And, despite all of their accomplishments, the majority still assumed African Americans to be uniformly lazy, poor, uneducated, without virtues and unworthy of being part of white society. Sadly, these attitudes and policies, mostly unspoken, continue today in many places. The criminal justice system is perhaps the most systematically racist of our present-day social institutions. As Bryan Stevenson wrote in his article ‘Why American Prisons Owe Their Cruelty to Slavery’ (August 4, 2019, The New York Times - 1619 Project): Several years ago, my law office was fighting for the release of a black man who had been condemned, at the age of 16, to die in prison. Matthew was one of 62 Louisiana children sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for nonhomicide offenses. Some had been in prison for nearly 50 years. Almost all had been sent to Angola, a penitentiary considered one of America’s most violent and abusive. Angola is immense, larger than Manhattan, covering land once occupied by slave plantations. … The United States has the highest rate of incarceration of any nation on Earth: We represent 4 percent of the planet’s population but 22 percent of its imprisoned. … I’ve found myself representing clients sentenced to life without parole for stealing a bicycle or for simple possession of marijuana. And central to understanding this practice of mass incarceration and excessive punishment is the legacy of slavery. … I recently went to New Orleans to celebrate the release of several of our Angola clients, including Matthew. … I realized how important it is to stay hopeful: Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. There were moments of joy that night. But there was also heaviness; we all seemed keenly aware that we were not truly free from the burden of living in a nation that continues to deny and doubt this legacy, and how much work remains to be done. One thing that clearly has to be done is to eliminate black history month and make black history part of American history, 365 days a year. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said it best when he said: “Black history is American history”. And, despite the knee-jerk reaction to the cry, the plea and, now, the demand, that ”black lives matter”, until we truly believe that and our social institutions and culture reflect it, we cannot say truthfully and honestly that “all lives matter”. There are any number of other ongoing events and circumstances that point to the work referenced by Bryan Stevenson that remains to be done. I’ll mention just three: Charlottesville in 2019: When the debate over monuments, symbols of America’s history and how we use them, turned brutal, its most revealing aspect seemed to be what we forget – or choose to forget – about displaying them in the public square, particularly Confederate monuments. They are a tribute to figures in our past who not only championed despicable slave practices, but, even worse, were traitors to our country. The only “heritage” they represent is a triumph of a certain understanding of America as one which enshrines the superiority of white people in all social, political, and cultural situations. What they neglect to consider is that by displaying them in the open, generally in the center of town, these monuments continue to say to a consequential segment of our citizens you are less than the rest of us. 2021 U.S. Capitol Attack: When a group of insurrectionists invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021, some carrying the Confederate flag, it was a reinforcement a few years later of what the Confederacy represents to the white nationalists and their identification with it. A proper response might be that America is a country of whites, blacks and other non-white peoples (now referred to as “brown”), all fully free and equal citizens. I’m not a fan of color-coding people. It may work for files to distinguish one subject from another, but it is too superficial to even come close to distinguishing the experiences, culture and history of a people. That aside, it may be enlightening to ask those arguing to ‘preserve our country’s heritage’ what exactly is it intended to preserve about the black history part of this country’s heritage and why does the mere mention of black history and the experience of blacks in our history send shivers up and down the spine of so many white Americans, or to use a color metaphor, make so many white Americans see red. The Voting Rights Bills currently stalled in the U.S. Senate: In 1965, Congress passed the landmark Voting Rights Act, the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, to protect against racial discrimination in voting. Back then, states and localities suppressed the votes of people of color with poll taxes and literacy tests. This new law effectively transformed our society by delivering on the promise of the 14th and 15th Amendments that every citizen is entitled to an equal opportunity to participate in our democracy. That right, however, is now under threat, mostly because of two Supreme Court decisions that annulled two of its key provisions. From the earlier decision in 2013, efforts in many states ushered in a wave of restrictions on voting rights. In 2021 alone at least 19 states enacted some 34 laws that make it harder for people of color to vote. Today, that insidious discrimination takes on new forms. We see it when a state bans 24-hour voting in response to its widespread use in a heavily non-white county. We see it when a state sets limits on drop boxes that make them harder to access for non-white voters who are their main users. We see it when a legislator says we should focus on the “quality” of voters over the quantity. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the late civil rights champion and congressman, and the Freedom to Vote Act, have been approved by the House but face an uphill battle in the Senate. Together the two bills would strengthen the legal protections against discriminatory voting policies in the Voting Rights Act, restore what the Supreme Court struck down and adopt more sweeping measures affecting everything from the way congressional districts are drawn to how campaigns are financed. Critics have not identified flaws in the either bill, but, instead, they offer a combination of misinformation, myths, blatant lies and a regurgitation of the criticisms made against the Voting Rights Act in 1965. They do not – as, I firmly believe, cannot - offer reasoned explanations for why the law’s protections are any less important now than they were in 2006, when it was reauthorized with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. In the midst of this crisis of an ever-increasing flood of voting restrictions and redistricting abuses, effectively denying participation in our democracy to communities of color, Congress must pass a full-strength Voting Rights Act to prevent further erosion of voter rights and root it out quickly wherever it happens. So, what is our proper role as Christians in the all of the work that remains to be done? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s in his ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’, published in last week’s Chalice, posed the question differently. Writing to the white clergy who were advising him to be patient, it is also a question for us: will we, like Jesus, be extremists for the cause of justice? At the start of this article, I noted that there are many other African Americans whose contributions have influenced both America and the rest of the world. Ranging from poets and writers, to activists, to scientists and physicians, to politicians, judges and lawyers, to scholars and educators, to artists and entertainers, to record-breaking athletes, to a postal worker, a president, an astronaut and a mystic, they can all serve as examples for us. Some of their names are synonymous with Black History Month, others not as prominent and still others are unnamed here because they are far too many to mention. They were all pioneers, all transformed America in a profound way but were also human beings with all-too-human shortcomings, weighted down by personal demons and often misunderstood by their contemporaries: Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Alice Ball, Phillis Wheatley Peters, Denmark Vesey, Harriet Jacobs, James Forten, Bessie Coleman, Rosa Parks, Francis Harper, Mary Fields, Langston Hughes, George Washington Carver, Albert Murray, Ella Baker, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, W.E.B. Du Bois , Booker T. Washington, Sidney Poitier, Maya Angelou ( whose famous and aptly named memoir, "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" is so fitting in this context), Daniel Hale Williams, Jesse Owens, Thurgood Marshall, Constance Bailey Motley, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, Howard Thurman, Mae C. Jemison, Leontyne Price, Medgar Evers, Alvin Ailey, Colin Powel, Barack Obama, Ruby Bridges, Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Kamala Harris . If you don’t recognize some of these names, perhaps, as a fun assignment, even a challenge, google them and join us in our continuing work in racial reconciliation and broader social justice issues. Heather G. Kress, Member and Chair, RR&SJM P.S. It was during the celebration of the United States Bicentennial in 1976 that then President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month. Let’s not wait for our Tricentennial to change this. Author’s Note: The section of this article about St. Philip’s Church borrows heavily from the book, “Faith in Their Own Color”, written by Rev. Dr. Craig D. Townsend, Historian-in-Residence for Racial Justice at the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island. |
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St. John's Episcopal Church
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