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As early as the days of Christopher Columbus, Negroes have been part of our country's history. Many African-Americans, as they are called today, came to the Americas not as slaves but were explorers in their own right. Explorers like Estavanico, who traveled from Florida to as far south as Mexico City finally ending up in what is now Arizona, spent 8 years exploring the New World as a free man some eighty years before the first slave ship crossed to the shores of North America.

If you ask students today, black and white, what "Black History" month is all about and who does it refer to, you will get the usual answers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Lewis Farrakhan, Harriet Tubman, and maybe Booker T. Washington. While their input in our history cannot be denied many more African Americans have played extreme and vital roles in the shaping of our colorful country.

What of Phyllis Wheatley whose poetry George Washington praised? She is the author of many poems. One of her best poems is Liberty and Peace. After being freed and taught by her mistress, Susannah Wheatley, Phyllis first began to write at age thirteen and was already a published author at sixteen years old.

Richard Allen was the founder of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church and Ira Aldridge was the first great Negro actor to be born in America. Ira was famous for his portrayal of "Othello". This Shakespearean classic opened in London at Covent Garden in 1833.
While Aldridge was busy playing Shakespeare, American born Frederick Douglass, whose father was white, was a Freedom Fighter and gave his first address at an Anti-Slavery Society meeting in Nantucket in 1841.

About the time that Booker T. Washington was born in 1858, Daniel Hale Williams was born in Pennsylvania. His parents were free Negroes. He would grow up to become a medical doctor earning his medical degree from Northwestern University, at Evanston, Illinois. Then there is Henry Ossawa Tanner, a famous African American painter. His painting, "The Resurrection of Lazarus" was bought by the French government to hang in the Luxembourg, one of the world's greatest galleries. And the list goes on and on from journalist, Robert S. Abbott, to the father of the Blues, W. C. Handy.

The question should not be if Black History month should be longer or shorter or even at all; it should be 'How can we not teach of these great historical leaders in our schools?' Black or White-it shouldn't matter. With the events of Jena, Louisiana still fresh in the minds of our nation, more should be done to incorporate a whole and complete history curriculum for our students. No line designating a special "month" for a limited remembrance should be drawn for a country as diverse in its people as the United States is. Let American History be truly AMERICAN...

Learn more about this author, Ruth Speirs.
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