Today we are one week into February: African-American History Month. As part of my personal commemoration, I looked to my library to re-read one of the most thought-provoking books I have ever read. It is Faces at the Bottom of the Well, written in 1992 by Derrick Bell. Bell, who died in 2011, has an honored place in our history as the first tenured African-American professor at Harvard Law School. In Faces, Bell presents a collection of allegorical essays built around his thesis that racism is a 'permanent' and 'indestructible' component of American society. I most recently finished reading a debate between Bell and an imaginary colleague regarding the "Racial Licensing Preference Act," which allowed employers, public facilities, businesses, and realtors among others to openly exclude persons based on race and requiring payment of a quarterly tax to a fund ostensibly to improve the well being of African-Americans. While a part of me would like to deny Dr. Bell's thesis of the permanence of racism, the empirical evidence of American history and my life experience in this country unequivocally supports it.

 

However, I continue to marvel at the persistence of a people who would not be conquered by the systemic evil born of greed and fear. This persistence has been in no small part faith-based, dating from the days when Jesus was imparted to slaves by plantation owners as Oppressor, yet revealed as Liberator. Persistence, whether manifest in coded messages embedded in spirituals, shouts amid the boycotts and marches of the fifties and sixties, or more recent declarations that Black Lives Matter, characterizes the miracle of an indefatigable people against improbable odds of survival.

 

Almost every year since February was designated Black History Month as part of the nation's bicentennial in 1976, I hear from someone, somewhere why anyone needs an African-American History month. In these turbulent and downright dangerous times, I for one need it, because it reminds me of the power that is possible through persistence as evidenced in my own history. It was, according to Jesus, the persistence of the widow that miraculously received justice from the unjust judge. Such a reminder, in spite of today, may result in the miraculous tomorrow.

 

Let us march on till victory is won,

Freeman