
I have very mixed feelings about National African American History Month, also called Black History Month, which is why I haven’t added posts to my blog during February. Historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History suggested the week that became the month of February’s annual observance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. Since the history of African Americans has been the hidden and marginalized history of the United States of America, I believe there should be full integration of African Americans in American history. I wonder if giving the history of African Americans one month on the calendar and “American History” all year all the time further marginalizes the significant people, events, contributions, and sacrifices February is supposed to celebrate.
Some say take the month and really celebrate; others say you can’t, in just a month’s time, celebrate or even tell how America became America on the backs of people who still struggle for respect and a fair share of her riches. I raise these issues, though I don’t pretend to have the definitive answer to this historical equity dilemma. I choose to share what I know and what I find out about Black History in America—my history—throughout the year.

There is so much we don’t know about ourselves that even with one daily revelation, I doubt we’d ever run out of people, events, contributions and sacrifices to share. In just this past year, I wrote about Eugene Jacque Bullard, Maggie Lena Walker, Belle da Costa Greene, and important places like Richmond’s Jackson Ward and Evergreen Cemetery, just from the research I uncovered while writing my novel, Provenance.

For Veterans Day I wrote about the military prowess of African-Americans in America’s fight for freedom—from the Revolutionary War to today. I rejoiced when Provenance was a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley Award in 2016 because it was an honor to place in a competition named for the first published African American female writer. And I said goodbye to Barack Obama, a Black man and one of the greatest Presidents the United States has ever had. I wish we had a president with his character and values today.
So, as I said before, there is too much history for a mere month. As I discover more about myself and our country, I plan to use this space to write about America in all our colorful glory whenever the spirit and the history move me, be it February or any other month.