Retelling Race History

Our history books are full of what I call heroes and villain history. They are the stars that allow us to understand the events of our past. Or are they?

Heroes and villains are set up on pedestals for us to admire or despise. The problem with true heroes and villains is that they're nothing like us. We can only look at them from afar. And in doing so we fail to see ourselves as historical agents of change. Moreover, by suggesting that these larger than life figures are the catalyst and impetus for the historical landmarks we come to know so well, we fail to understand the slow and subtle changes in thinking, culture, politics etc, that are the prerequisites for the main events we are taught.

History doesn't emerge in a vacuum. Hitler was a product of his time, environment and the ideological framework of Germany, Europe and America. Eugenics was not his invention, nor could he have propounded such a philosophy if the climate, historical or otherwise, didn't already exist.

Likewise, Martin Luther King was not the first pioneer of the Civil Rights movement, nor was Rosa Parks. She wasn't some little old lady who was tired of Jim Crow and finally decided to take a stand. She had long since been a political activist and part of a much larger, church based women's movement for civil rights. Likewise, Martin Luther King was part of a larger picture of religious based community groups who had been fighting for change for years.

In a talk Ralph Abernathy's (head of the team of lawyers who fought for the Civil Rights Bill) daughter did at Morgan State University a few years ago, she urged the audience of students to understand that her dad and Martin were just regular people like them. They just decided to do something about the things they saw and experienced.

By telling hero and villain history, we negate our ability to be active agents of social change. We wait the coming of the next messiah. We wonder who is going to be the next amazing person who will lead us to the Promised Land. Hence the endless rhetoric in the black community that questions who the next great leader is going to be.

My answer is YOU. You, whoever you are that is dissatisfied with the current social conditions of blacks or any other group. We, regular people who, if we choose, can take time out of our day to challenge and change any act of injustice that we see or know about, no matter how small, subtle or seemingly inconsequential it may be. We the people, who without our silent complicity racism can not continue.

Now, I understand the call for black leaders, I just hope that in presenting the task ahead, we are not limiting the number of people who believe they are qualified to step forth for the job. Because Martin nor Malcolm, nor Rosa Parks stood alone. The platform they stood on was made up of thousands of people just like them, just like you and me, who are ordinary people, with the potential to do extraordinary things.