Black History *yawn* Month?!?

Maybe i'm wrong about this but i remember when Black History month was a big deal. i recall getting totally excited about having a whole month in school where the decorations, teachers visual aids and special assemblies focused on the contributions that black people had made to our country. i remember reading about...

• Harriet Tubman
• Charles Drew
• Booker T. Washington
• Marcus Garvey
• Rosa Parks
• Frederick Douglass
• Jesse Owens
• Crispus Attucks
• Phillis Wheatley
• Sojourner Truth
• Malcolm X
• Sidney Poitier
• Marian Anderson
• George Washington Carver
• Matthew Henson
• Benjamin Banneker
• W. E. B. Du Bois
• Duke Ellington
• Jackie Robinson
• Althea Gibson
• Muhammad Ali

... just to name a few.

i think the thing i loved most about learning about all of these figures was that i could be just like them. That if i wanted to, i could become almost anything i made my mind up to be. The promise of almost unlimited opportunity was for me a driving force growing up. Knowing that my own family was well acquainted with the ugliness of racism and still managed to find ways over and around it made me "swell" with a certain sort of pride. That sense of pride would grow and my determination to achieve would increase every February in light of Black History month.

Maybe some would say that we shouldn't have a month, not even a week or a day that highlights the achievements or accomplishments of "one particular" group of people. i don't know, maybe we should have even more! I mean why not?!? This doesn't have to be a political thing at all... maybe this could be about what it was all about for me as a kid... how awesome it was to know that i might possibly one day make a real difference like so many of those in the list above!

i am willing to admit that we live in a time of pretty rough political waters (perhaps even poisoned waters) and the subject of Black History month itself has perhaps become yet another victim of hyper-political sensitivity, hyper-political correctness or misguided multi-culturalism. Maybe.

That said, it would be great to be assured that there are other little kids (particularly little black boys) out there getting the same message i did when i was kid... that no matter what the odds... you can achieve, you can make a difference!

Man, i love Black History month!