Black History Month: The Importance of Knowing African American History

Black history month is an important time to celebrate Black people. The history of African Americans is not taught enough. There are many ways to educate society about the experiences that African Americans endured. This information should not only be shared in schools but on television, through social media, and even from parents to their children. If black history is taught more, we would honor historic leaders of the black communities and their accomplishments. In this black history month essay, I want to argue that knowing our black history would help America be better stewards of the privileges we’ve gained. Also, it would create awareness for all people.

If black history was taught more our historic leaders of the black community would be honored for what they accomplished. Those people who fought for the rights we have today are celebrated as they should be. At least the main ones are. I haven’t had the privilege of seeing a film or have an adult talk about different people than Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. I believe that there are many interesting topics in history of African Americans, and if the world was taught more about black historic leaders then it would be such a better place. Celebrating black history month allows us to pause and remember the historic leaders. So we can commemorate their achievements and even how they led us to be here today.

Black history being taught more would help America be better stewards of the privileges we’ve gained. Several years of being around predominantly African Americans peers it impelled me with the reality of that we weren’t taught the old, old stories of our history. I then realized how then the next generation, and we ourselves, will forget them. To what would surely be the lament of many historic African American leaders. The world including myself take for granted the rights that many people before us sweated, bled, and died to secure. If Black history was taught more it would create awareness for all people and remind African Americans that black history is our history. I can’t even recall any of my history textbooks being a little more than a page devoted to the Civil Rights Movement. Which is absolutely insane to me because, unfortunately it seems that, apart from an intentional effort otherwise, Black history is often lost in the mists of time. When we observe Black History Month, we give citizens of all races the opportunity to learn about a past and a people of which they may have little awareness.

So to conclude the essay, I want black history to be taught in everyday life. It’s obviously still not taught enough or spoken about enough in the world. If us as people actually take the time to pause and realize how fortunate we are for our historic leaders the culture would not only be stronger but black minds would be too. It pains me to see people overlooking Black History Month. Black history (just like Hispanic, Asian, European, and Native history) belongs to all of us black and white, men and women, young and old. The impact African Americans have made on this country is part of our collective consciousness. Contemplating Black history draws people of every race into the grand and diverse story of this nation.

Works Cited:

1. Aitken, R., & Dupuis, M. (2017). Risk, governance, and compliance after the global financial crisis: The implications of regulatory capitalism for the restructuring of financial services. Regulation & Governance, 11(2), 125-139.
2. Campbell, A. (2014). Jordan Belfort's "The Wolf of Wall Street" and the Corruption of the American Dream. Journal of American Culture, 37(2), 252-265.
3. Covell, J., & Crispin, L. (2017). Masculinity, gender and the domain of the sales organization. Gender, Work & Organization, 24(3), 274-287.
4. Diamond, J. (2013). The wolf of wall street: How Hollywood infiltrated the Dow Jones. Financial Times, 1.
5. Elazar, M. (2016). “Wolf of Wall Street” on trial: Pop culture in the court of law. Rutgers Journal of Law & Public Policy, 13(2), 301-331.
6. Field, D. (2015). High rollers: Inside the savings and loan disaster. University of Texas Press.
7. Kondratieva, M. A., & Semenov, V. P. (2019). Moral values in the context of Wall Street. European Journal of Science and Theology, 15(3), 143-155.
8. Levin, M. J. (2016). From Jordan Belfort to Steve Cohen: The ethical perils of insider trading. Journal of Business Ethics, 133(3), 549-563.
9. Lowry, D. T., & Gaskin, J. (2019). Gender and power in the workplace: Analyzing the influence of the #MeToo movement in organizational research. Journal of Management Inquiry, 28(4), 402-409.
10. McNair, B. (2018). Gender stereotypes in the media. In The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender (pp. 57-66). Routledge.

Video Version