So, What’s Next?
Lately I have read several writings about the removal of confederate monuments and the disillusionment of an attack on history. It is refreshing to read sentiments on the confederate monuments that have peered over the shoulders of those it was intended to remind and psychologically incapacitate. I agree that it is not erasing any history given that there are enough textbooks for my daughter and her daughter (in the far future) to read and revisit at their leisure. However a large number of African Americans have had their history erased due to enslavement by proponents of Slavery and Jim Crow. I also agree that if the statues were to maintain any semblance of that part of American’s history then why are there not other monuments that characterized additional aspects of slavery such as Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner and Marcus Garvey. FYI, the state of Maryland just opened the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in March of 2017. The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened late last year so it’s been 154 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and Americans continue to grapple with this sick deprivation of human rights at the comfort of their self created superiority.
There have been references made about maybe we should place statues of slaves and African American’s hanging from trees. There are pics of lifeless male bodies with a large number of Caucasian Americans finding joy in their fete in museums and history books throughout America. But do we as a Nation want to celebrate this fact? No, we don’t and neither do we want to erase it to ensure that we learn from our past. However, just as Southern Nobles were erected as proud symbols of the Confederacy so should we erect African American slaves and Freedmen that gave their lives for freedom and equality. Individuals that fought for equal rights to education for not only themselves but for their children and communities. This effort allows the country to embrace the strength of Americans…having a dream, a goal, a value that perpetuates and personifies the principals that this country was founded upon, liberty! Thanks to those for being apart of the solution and not the problem. Your work is not done; however, you must work to create a pervasive, steadfast awakening within your family, community and place of worship. We can all do it but we must be diligent!
