By Michael H. Brownstein
Now that African American History Month is here and the Month of the Woman (March) is soon upon us, it’s time to give credit where credit is due. White people write the history books; it’s too bad African American history books are written by whites as well.
Yes, Harriet Tubman did free slaves and, yes, Rosa Parks did not give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery. And that’s the problem. Hilliard Brooks, 22, was shot and killed by police in 1952 when she refused to give up her seat – three years before anyone had ever heard of Parks. Children going home from school were arrested often for not standing to let white people sit. A grandmother and her grandson spent time in jail when they refused to give up their seat.
An African American woman named Jo Ann Robinson was so powerful she could phone the mayor of Montgomery. African American women at that time could not do that. As president of the Women’s Political Council, she felt it was her duty to protest about the unfair treatment whites gave to the African American community. She was so fed up, she told the mayor something would have to be done.
The next day – after many letters and protests – Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. She was not the first, but, because of Robinson, she was the last. Robinson called together the meetings that brought Parks to fame, introduced the new preacher Martin Luther King, Jr., and worked without recognition ensuring the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a success. Why don’t we know about her? Can it be that a maid did not threaten the white establishment? Could the fact be that Robinson was an intelligent and innovative leader who scared white individuals so much, they had to erase her from history?
During February and March, we hear about Harriet Tubman, the great conductor of the underground railroad, who was illiterate and suffered from headaches. That’s how white society sees it. Tubman was one of the greatest spies in history helping the Union win the war between the states – the Civil War. But we cannot have that. She is, after all, an African American (and, even worse, a woman). How can she be a great spy? How could she memorize secrets just by looking at a general’s notes? Wasn’t she illiterate? Could it be she was intelligent? A threat to the white community?
Perhaps, given my color, I should not be writing this, but isn’t it time we learned the truth? John Hope Franklin, probably the greatest writer of African American history, wrote about Tubman. She freed about three hundred slaves, according to him. But he also tells of others, others lost in history as white society transformed one of our greatest spies to our only underground railroad conductor.
What happened to Elijah Anderson, who was known as the general superintendent of the railroad? He freed over a thousand slaves in seven years. Or John Mason, who freed over thirteen hundred slaves? Or John Fairfield, whose father owned slaves? Fairfield freed slaves pretending to be an agent for his own father. Jane Lewis bought slaves only to free them. Let us not forget Lucretia Mott and Lewis and Benjamin Tappan, who were white abolitionists.
Why is our history skewed in the direction that creates a stereotype of African American womanhood as individuals who cannot lead, who cannot think? The reality is so much different. Harriet Tubman deserves her place in history, but not only as a conductor freeing slaves. She is one of our greatest spies. Jo Ann Robinson brought in an entire era by herself. Where is the credit due her?
It’s time the threat of intelligence is put to the side. Leadership comes in many colors. We must give women and people of color their rightful place in history. Color and sex are not a threat. Next year let’s hear about all the heroes – the Robinsons, the Brooks, the Andersons, the Masons, and the Franklins. We owe this to all of our children.
| Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
Michael, you write, “Perhaps, given my color, I should not be writing this,” but I think that, given your color, you most certainly should be. And thank you for saying it for all of the rest of us, of whatever color.
ReplyDeleteYou, sir, most certainly should be writing about this. No human is an island. Any human's oppression oppresses me, if I may so presume to paraphrase Donne. There is another such forgotten black woman, by the mistaken name of Mary Elizabeth Bowser. Her true name was Mary Jane Richards, but in keeping with the times her brief marriage to one Wilson Bowser stuck, and eclipsed the truth-she was a slave in the Confederate White House, and a Union spy, literally serving the soup as Jefferson Davis spelled out to his cabinet and generals their battle plans. Humans so insensitive to the suffering of others as to own them have always underestimated them as enemies and spies, and those bastards were no different. They spoke openly, without even noticing there were other humans there, as if the slaves really were as harmless and ignorant as they played at. They were not, of course; and Mary's role in the Union victory cannot be over-emphasized. It was invaluable, indispensible-yet remains mainly unknown. Good on you sir.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the excellent commentary.
ReplyDeleteLast night, my wife and I watched Lee Daniels’ 2013 film, THE BUTLER, dedicated to the brave men and women who struggled for civil rights. Excruciatingly sad, their suffering, the suffering of blacks who had gone before and still come after.
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