I follow Rachel Cargle’s Instagram and for the month of February, she’s been putting up events and culture related to Black History Month to google on your own.
It’s been eye opening and uncomfortable to realize how much I don’t know about either Black history or culture. And that quick daily search usually leads me to more links and more I didn’t know about. And I think back to how entirely whitewashed my education was and how I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.
So I’m sharing a little of my journey here, not to get “woke points” but just in case your education was similar to mine. This is what I’ve just researched in the last week that I never heard about in school:
- The Igbo Landing mutiny
- The Emancipation Compensation Act (yes, enslavers got compensated for the loss of the people they enslaved. The enslaved people got nothing.)
- Black Wall Street
and, to end on a note of Black joy, I listened to the “Black national anthem” for the first time, Lift Every Voice and Sing.