Photography by Benita Blocker, 2015
I completed a Black History Tour recently at the Latibah Collard Green Museum in Charlotte, NC. Of course, I had never focused on African American Studies or Black History for most of my life, and I hated any type of history class. My thoughts were "it's over; why do I care about it now?"
Well, fast forward 40 years to my present day world of 2015, and the little Black History that I did hear about is now repeating itself from 50 years ago as we saw militarized police in the small town of Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. On top of that, slave labor only ended about 150 years ago for the USA.
Many people think that we will never go back to slave labor, but think again. What do you think the "prison system" is? What do you think of correctional institutions? Prisoners may not be "picking cotton" or "cutting cane" or toiling the land, but you must believe production and manufacturing is being exercised indoors where you can NOT SEE the "condition of the slaves."
Many people want to think that they are smarter and brighter than prisoners. Unfortunately, politics, scandal, false witnesses, and outright "liars" can send innocent people to prison in a blink of an eye. Achieving justice in the American Justice system is a bonus that only prayers can deliver.
But back to my Black History Tour, I took a trip down the "underground railroad." I saw slave ship conditions. I even learned about sharecropping for those freed slaves that did not want to move North and what G.A.P. stands for in the name of the musical group "The G.A.P. Band." Yet, the most valuable message from this Black History Tour is that if Blacks believe that their history started in America as slaves, then they are missing out on all the royalty from all the African history of "Kings and Queens" before the slave ships docked into America.
On a separate note about history repeating itself, consider the Carolinas Healthcare System nursing home that I worked as a hairdresser for several years. According to the history that I know about it, the facility had independent contractors as hairdressers over twenty years ago, but eventually, created employee hairdresser positions in order to assist in keeping the facility hair salon running at a full-time capacity. Unfortunately, twenty years later with an almost completely new administration, no one knew the history nor the value of having employee hairdressers at an extremely modest pay. So the facility under new administration eventually went back to independent contractors for hairdressers, and the facility hair salon began to remain closed as much as it was open. If history continues to repeat, then in another 15 years and with another administration overhaul, then Carolinas Healthcare System may go back to employee hairdressers. Only time will tell.
In the meantime, Black "folks" need to learn their African History and their Black American History. The tour at the Latibah Collard Green Museum cost $7.00 USD at the time of publishing this article. The tour is a good start to assist you on your quest for Black History.
