February is Black History Month

In 1915, Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Rev. Jesse E. Moorland co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). Their goal was to research and bring awareness to the largely ignored, yet crucial role black people played in American and world history. The following year, Woodson published and distributed his findings in The Journal of Negro History. He founded the publication with the hope that it would dispel popular mistruths. He also hoped to educate black people about their cultural background and instill them with a sense of pride in their race.

SO FAR SO GOOD>>>>>> LET US GO ON>>>>>>>

The son of former slaves and the second black person to receive a degree from Harvard University, Carter Woodson understood the value of education. He also felt the importance of preserving one's heritage and, upon his urgings, the fraternity Omega Psi Phi >>>>>>>(I GUESS THIS ALLEGIANCE TO A FRATERNITY WAS NECESSARY)>>>>>>> created Negro History and Literature Week in 1920. In 1926, Woodson changed the name to Negro History Week. He selected the month of February for the celebration as a way to honor of the birth of two men whose actions drastically altered the future of black Americans. Abraham Lincoln, the U.S. President who issued the Emancipation Proclamation>>>>>>>>>HEY WAIT A MINUTE WASN'T THAT DONE FOR POLITICAL REASONS AND NOT OUT OF JUSTICE?>>>>>>> was born on February 12th and Frederick Douglass, >>>>>>>I CAN SEE HONORING MR. DOUGLASS, BUT WAS ABRAHAM LINCOLN OF OUR LINEAGE?>>>>>>>one of the nation's leading abolitionists was born on February 14th.

HOLD UP>>>>

Records dating to February 12, 1809 officially remark that Abraham Lincoln's parents were Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, however, there has been a new discovery which has put a new slant on the issue of parentage.

Abraham Lincoln's mother was having an affair with a black plantation worker and new DNA evidence suggests that she somehow tricked her husband into believing that Abraham was the couples child. Secret love letters unearthed in 2003 reveal that Lincoln's mother was conducting a clandestine affair with a slave named Iemis from a Kentucky plantation.

"We managed to attain DNA evidence from a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair which proves that he had a very strong African genetic link. His chromosome makeup is very specific to West African DNA patterns and this suggests that Abraham's real father was indeed of African origin," Dr. Alan Holdsworth, who is the chief Anthropologist on this project told National Geographic magazine.

Lincoln's Speeches and Stances before 1862

"If all earthly power were given me," said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, "I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land." After acknowledging that this plan's "sudden execution is impossible," he asked whether freed blacks should be made "politically and socially our equals?" "My own feelings will not admit of this," he said, "and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not ... We can not, then, make them equals."⁵

One of Lincoln's most representative public statements on the question of racial relations was given in a speech at Springfield, Illinois, on June 26, 1857.⁶ In this address, he explained why he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would have admitted Kansas into the Union as a slave state:

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ...

Racial separation, Lincoln went on to say, "must be effected by colonization" of the country's blacks to a foreign land. "The enterprise is a difficult one," he acknowledged,

but "where there is a will there is a way," and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.

EMMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 1862

Whereas on the 22nd day of September, A.D. 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

"That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States."

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-In-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

BACK TO BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Woodson and the ANSLH provided learning materials to teachers, black history clubs and the community at large. They also published photographs that depicted important figures in black culture, plays that dramatized black history, and reading materials.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson died in 1950, but his legacy continued on as the celebration of Negro History Week was adopted by cities and organizations across the country. This observance proved especially important during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, a time when the inhumane and unequal treatment of black people in America was being challenged and overturned.

The Black Power Movement of the 1970s emphasized racial pride and the significance of collective cultural values. This prompted the ASNLH, now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, to change Negro History Week to Black History Week. In 1976, they extended the week to a month-long observance.

Black History Month is now recognized and widely celebrated by the entire nation on both a scholarly and commercial level. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History continues to promote, preserve and research black history and culture year-round.

I did not know this before I searched this Rising......I feel a little moved to observe it....however, not so much. I have never been interested in political history no further than unveiling the truth. My thing is and will always be the spiritual evolution of my people as a whole being. I am not interested in proving anyone is of African descent unless it is to this goal or if they themselves added on to this goal. I am still in the thought that it is more important to feel an ideal or way of being in the heart than on paper or in the popular view, however in the event that these two things can be used as tools for that goal I am not all opposed to it. There is no need to wait for a special time in the year to recognize something valuable in essence unless that period in time herald's cosmic force. And no, I will honor no one person above all however, I will show my respect and appreciation to one who honors ALL.

I applaud the efforts Dr. Woodson for wanted to connect our people to their LifeStory.

Does it matter that our Life Story is celebrated by the entire nation or just by us? Does it matter that both on a scholarly and commercial level it is recognized? Is this the only way to show the youth the richness of their heritage through a paradigm of thought that does not totally embody the richness?

Just questions.......

LIFE VITALITY AND HEALTH,

Djadja

http://3-3-1.blogspot.com/