How come I was never taught about Shirley Chisholm in school?
Are you going to try and tell me she can be deemed unimportant?
I didn’t learn about her until I took a class on African American Women’s history my junior year of college. I took women’s US history courses prior to that.
The exclusion of minorities from history textbooks and curriculums and it is a travesty, really. Yes there is Black History Month and Women’s History Month, but they’re not really all that helpful. Students get a brief dose of Martin Luther King Jr/Susan B Anthony/Harriet Tubman for a couple weeks and that’s it. There are only a few figures who have been “selected” and are rehashed year after year.
I do not remember any black figures of the civil rights movement other than MLK and Rosa Parks ever discussed at all in my classes (not even Malcolm X, and I took AP history courses where you supposedly learn more). Obviously those two are key figures that are essential to learn about, but there were many other people who did important things and they have been unjustly erased from the books. And not only are individuals omitted, but entire classes of people (such as LGBTQ history etc) are as well.
And even though we studied the same figures year after year, I am pretty certain the “lessons” on MLK were basically the same in the fifth grade as they were in high school for me (again, AP HISTORY o cool).
Idk where I am really going with this and it isn’t directed at anyone in particular, so sorry for the rant. I’m just sick of history written from the perspective of old white dudes. And Tom Hanks. I suppose there is some overlap there lol but whatever.
I had to reblog for the Tom Hanks comment, even though I loved the entire post.
Ugh all of this. It really makes me sick when I think about it too hard. I had never heard the name Medgar Evers until The Help came out and I was curious as to why people were so upset that the assassination of someone I had never heard of was given so little screen time.
I might cry. You didn’t KNOW who Medgar Evers was until THE HELP? My word. That’s….highly…..highly…..highly….upsetting. I thank you for even putting that out there. This is the reason why I will teach. This post and the many posts that I’ve seen like it keep telling me that I’m supposed to do this profession. To help everybody know these histories. From Black Wall Street to Shirley Chisholm to Haiti to Bolívar to Zumbi to Nkrumah to Lumumba to Mandela to Shakur (and not 2Pac) to Baldwin to Washington Carver to Banneker to DuBois. Our histories have been kept silent. Fuck. I just assumed we knew.
Isn’t that sick?! I grew up in very very very sheltered (read: white and Asian) Orange County and my parents are immigrants, so it’s not like they knew things about African American history or bothered to learn it. No one ever told me this stuff before I actively sought the information in college. I had no idea who Emmett Till was until last year. No mention of Medgar Evers. We got MLK, Rosa Parks, and a demonized Malcolm X. You know, the patron saints of White America’s Sanitized Black History Mythology.
I am almost ashamed to admit how much black woman’s history I learned when I pledged Delta last year. I should have known it before that. But Shirley Chisholm, Dorothy Height, Fannie Lou Hamer, Nikki Giovanni, Barbara Jordan…
I should have known ALL of that. When a lot of those women I only knew cursory details about.
^^ (*waves* hey Soror!) & not to derail, but this is why i have little to NO patience for white folks critiquing black greek life or black colleges/HBCUs, or black institutions in general. because a lot of problematics, yes, BUT these spaces are one of the few where black history is maintained and disseminated. like, how much LESS would we know about black history if it weren’t for these institutions? and folks generally don’t know the extent to which HBCUs and black greek groups supported things like the Civil Rights Movement, anti-poverty activism, feminism, anti-colonialism, etc. meanwhile the folks pooh-poohing HBCUs and black greeks don’t know who Dorothy Height is or why she matters or why it matters that they don’t know.
and i have lots of feelings about the MLK memorial at the Mall, but the only reason why it’s there to begin with is because of Alpha Phi Alpha. a black greek group. like, nooooobody else was even concerned.
Teach the babies black history. The school systems will not teach them. They (white america) does not want us to know our history. Definitley does not want little white children to know that black people have someone to be proud of beyond the Martin Luther King and Harriet Tubman.
And we have to learn to teach them or the ignorance continues.
