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The Ambivalence Of Black History Month - Perspective From An African American Scientist

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As I sit here on this cloudy Sunday morning in Georgia, I realized that it was the last day of Black History Month. This annual celebration can be traced to the son of former slaves, Carter G. Woodson. According to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) website, “In 1926, Dr. Woodson initiated the celebration of Negro History Week, which corresponded with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.” The celebration transformed to an entire February celebration in 1976. A weekend conversation with my wife sparked reflections on the “ambivalence” of Black History Month. I’ll explain.

Black History Month is absolutely appropriate, necessary, and welcomed. It allows for celebration, recognition, and framing of contributions of Black people in the United States. Some people raise questions about the need for the celebration or somehow perceive it as a threat to them. It’s not. I challenge the people raising questions about Black History Month to reflect on their history classes in school. An honest assessment will likely reveal very truncated narratives on the contributions of Black people. From my experience, it was a heavy dose of slavery, the Civil War, a little about desegregation, and Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom I share membership in Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity with, was indeed a great man and U.S. icon, but he is not the answer to every Black History Month question or defense.

This extreme under-sampling” of Black contributions to American history became more poignant to me as I learned of my election this month to the National Academy of Engineering, which has only 2355 U.S. members and is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed on a scientist or engineer. In the moment that I was notified, I said a mental “thank you” to Dr. George Washington Carver and Dr. Warren Washington. Dr. George Washington Carver (1864-1943) was an extraordinary scientist at Tuskegee Institute (now University). I never met him but read so many books about him and the things he was able to do with peanuts. As a child, there were not many (likely any) examples of Black scientists in my radius of influence. Dr. Warren Washington is a pioneering climate scientist and recipient of the Nation Medal of Science. He invited me to visit with him at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) when I was a fledgling graduate student. That experience changed my life and shaped who I am as a scientist today. Part of my success is on the shoulders of these two mentors.

Though I have no psychic powers, I am guessing that a significant portion of readers did not learn about either of these men in school. I bet many people did not learn about the contributions of Fannie Lou Hamer, Shirley Chisholm, Charles Drew, or Langston Hughes. I do not recall any lessons in my history classes about the murder of Emmett Till, the Charlotte Sit-Ins, or the Niagara movement. The last two paragraphs (and more) are why Black History Month is absolutely needed.

Ok, Dr. Shepherd, so why did you use the word “ambivalence” in the title of your article? The word ambivalence, according to online Cambridge Dictionary, is defined as, “the state of having two opposing feelings at the same time, or being uncertain about how you feel.” My ambivalence comes because of the finiteness of the end of the shortest month on the calendar. After a month of social media posts, advertisements, and celebratory activities, these contributions fade back into the “spare closets or kitchen drawers” of the pulse of life for many people. The steady flow from the faucet becomes a drip. Candidly, we need a steady stream. Let’s supplement Black History Month projects in K-12 school with sustained and augmented curricula that better reflects all of our contributions. Let’s provide everyone with fair and equitable resources and voting rights in every month. Let’s not just name bridges and roads after Civil Rights icons, let’s truly honor them with meaningful actions toward racial justice.

For me, it comes down to a typed letter that I received from a 5th grader in Illinois this month. At one point in the letter, the boy said, “We are celebrating Black History Month....I wanted to write to you. Dr. Marshall Shepherd is someone I look up to.” Like me to Dr. Carver, he has never met me, but he is watching. I don’t know his race, background, or interest. I do know he’s watching just as someone is watching Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney Benjamin Crump (a friend and Florida State University classmate), or Lebron James. Black History Month matters.

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