Black history should be a challenge to our republic and its core narrative.
 | By Eleanor Barkhorn Editor at Large, Opinion |
As I did my first edit of Esau McCaulley's essay on Black History Month, I laughed in recognition. Esau and I grew up in very different places — he in Alabama, I in Manhattan — but one aspect of our upbringings was the same: We both became fascinated by George Washington Carver in elementary school. |
"I was enthralled with the idea that the early 20th-century agricultural scientist, born into slavery, came up with hundreds of uses for peanuts," Esau writes. "By the time Black History Month rolled into full swing, my ode to the master of peanuts sat alongside posters lauding the accomplishments of such stalwarts as Martin Luther King Jr. (he always inspired multiple posters), Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Sojourner Truth." |
At first glance, there's nothing wrong with taking February as an opportunity to learn about and appreciate Black heroes like Carver. But Esau writes that there are problems with this approach to history: "It gave those outside our community license to use Black accomplishment against us. They told us that we needed more exceptional Black people, instead of questioning a society that required such greatness of us." |
Today, decades after Esau and I were in school, far too many students are still getting this limited version of Black history. In an essay this weekend, Esau calls for a more radical — and more truthful — way of teaching Black history and American history as a whole. |
"African American history forces us to view Black experience of injustice not as the interruption of or caveat to an otherwise grand narrative, but a compelling story in its own right," he writes. |
This version of history is challenging and forces Americans to own up to the ways their country has failed to live up to its ideals. But it is not, Esau writes, "only a tale of woe." |
"What makes America a wonder is that this is the land upon which my ancestors, despite the odds, fought for and often made a life for themselves." |
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