Black History Month Is A Healing Practice
“Until you heal the wounds of your past, you are going to bleed.”
-Iyanla Vanzant
Racism is a system of power that assigns value based on the social interpretation of how someone looks.? Because of this dehumanizing system, Black people and their communities have experienced trauma, state sanctioned killing, attempted genocide, mental stress, physical disease, exploitation and destruction.? Access to communal healing and self-care is a right and necessary for Black people.?
Access to communal healing and self-care can be found in the ancient, indigenous wisdom of sankofa, a word from the Akan tribe in Ghana.? Sankofa translates to “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind”.? The Akans believe that there must be movement and new learning as time passes. As this forward march proceeds, the knowledge of the past must never be forgotten.? Sankofa is the quest for knowledge based on critical examination, and intelligent and patient investigation.
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What happens when the past is intentionally suppressed?
Dr. Carter G. Woodson, educator, author, historian, founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and originator of the Journal of African American History, was blocked from the American Historical Association conferences as a paying member.? He saw his own people’s contributions to American history as "overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them."
In 1926, Dr. Woodson launched the Negro History Week.? I can imagine that the start of this week was a positive affirmation to the knowledge that Dr. Woodson and the achievements of Black Americans.? It was a healing practice of affirming the innate value of Black people; disrupting the suppression of Black people’s contribution to America; and dismantling the junk science of Black inferiority. ? It was the deep breath and release that Dr. Woodson and the Black community needed.? This week was later expanded to Black History Month.??
Black History Month continues to be a healing practice.? As this month closes, let’s continue to embody sankofa and center the truth so we can heal.