As February ends, I find myself reflecting back on its designation as Black History Month and the many opportunities it provides us each year, across a wide variety of media, to dive into that history.

While I appreciate the richness of the experiences offered, I sometimes feel an internal tension over how much time to spend learning a history that I can tell myself is not my history. That is the challenge for me as a white man – accepting and embracing the fact that it is my duty as a citizen to learn about both the Black people who have made history despite facing overwhelming racism and about the many ways that past practices of white people have resulted in today’s structural racism and our enduring economic and social disparities. Black history is indeed my history.

That fact was reinforced for me a couple of weeks ago in a conversation with an African-American friend and activist about why she continued to dedicate her life to work for racial equity and justice. “I want my grandbabies to grow up in a more just world. Don’t you?” She helped me see that as a white man it was easy for me to opt out of being concerned about racial justice. After all, my day-to-day life didn’t include confronting disrespect or disdain or denial of services because of my skin tone.

Our guest contributor last week Tamara Copeland, an African-American woman raised in Virginia, shared in her post how she thought for a long time that the system was fair and that education and hard work were the path to prosperity and happiness for everyone, including Black people.

She reflected on how the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 changed her world view. Trayvon, a Black teenager visiting his dad in Florida, was shot without cause by a member of a neighborhood watch program. Put on trial the security guard was found not guilty of second-degree murder.

In her disbelief and rage over the lack of consequences for this murder, Tamara reflects: “That’s when I started reading everything I could about Black history, listening to podcasts, watching documentaries, trying to understand how this murderer could have been freed. Why do African Americans predominate in all statistics reflecting a negative quality of life? Why are we disproportionately represented in jails and prisons? Why aren’t we succeeding in our country’s schools? Why is there a huge gap in wealth between Blacks and whites? Why? Why? Why?”

I was moved by Tamara’s passion and commitment to learning. It caused me to think about my more casual approach to filling in the huge gaps in my understanding of Black history, I believe those gaps, which I probably share with many Americans, limit our motivation and our understanding of the changes that are still needed today in the pursuit of racial justice.

Black History Month this year brought a number of lessons for me. I learned more about the Tulsa Massacre through a PBS special about how a thriving Black community was destroyed by fearful white people in 1921, just over 100 years ago. And what the Black churches and others are doing in Tulsa today to continue to work for racial equity. I read in a Washington Post series on Black History about Carter G. Woodson and his lifetime commitment to educating all about the facts of Negro life in America. His 1933 book, The Mis-Education of the Negro, offered a curriculum for educators on Black history. His body of work resulted in the beginning of what we now call Black History, then called Negro History Week.

Two other stories in the Washington Post series got my attention. One was about a bill introduced in the Mississippi state legislature in 1922 asking the federal government to negotiate with European countries who had colonies in Africa for an African region where the Black residents of Mississippi (and presumably other states) could be shipped, creating “a final home for the American negro.”  

More upbeat was an article on how Alex Haley began writing for Reader’s Digest as a young Black man and spent 30 years there resulting in his classic works on Malcolm X and historical drama Roots.

Here in my home community of Greenbelt, a local Black History Month Committee developed a series of events around the theme of “Body, Mind, and Money: Black Health, Wellness and Finance. Topics included: “Health Equity in Maryland,” “The Agriculture of Enslaved People: What They Grew and Raised to Eat,” a Negro League Baseball Exhibit, “Maintaining a Business in Greenbelt,” and “Mind and Body Self-care.”  

February is a rich time to learn about Black History. Openness to learning is the pathway to more understanding and compassion. And ultimately to changed attitudes and behaviors. I am reminded of the simple truth that we need each other to survive and to live in community. I hope your Black History Month experience advanced understanding, compassion and actions to end structural racism and racial inequity.