One can never deny that it is helpful to learn figures, dates, and facts. However, it is essential to be purposeful while selecting what topics to magnify and why. The aim must be to explain crucial narratives and defy problematic paradigms, not memorize trivia.
We agree that it is impossible to review Black history in depth. However, if you are willing to know about their origin, then here are four myth-busting facts. Each of them offers examples of the sort of basic historical information every one of us must fully learn to enable effective conversations regarding race. So, here you go!
Black History 101 | Debunking The Myths
Black History Did Not Start With Slavery
Sadly, the long, wretched history of the African-American experiences pave the way for many to get the wrong idea about the trans-Atlantic slave trade as the initiation of Black history. If you wish to learn more about their valuable history, then read books about Tom Jones black history matter. You would be shocked to know that Black history goes back a long way.
As a matter of fact, it is ancient Africans who took pride in creating the 365-day calendar, first estimating pi (for mathematical calculations), developing the first method of counting, and making rudimentary clocks. This was not it, but there were a lot of medical procedures that were being performed in ancient Africa long before they were introduced in Europe. Some of these procedures include:
1. Anesthesia
2. Autopsy
3. Brain surgery
4. Bullet removal
5. Caesarean section
6. Filling of dental cavities
7. Installation of false teeth
8. Limb traction and broken bone setting
9. Skin grafting
10. Tissue cauterization
11. Vaccination
Apart from these, Africans also used to perform surgeries under antiseptic conditions, even during the times when this concept was only emerging in Europe. However, the world has been so accustomed to viewing “Black History” through the lens of oppression and exploitation that we all tend to minimize the value it brings. It would be safe to say that Africa is the common forefather of all humanity. Thus, Tom Jones black lives matter is essentially our all’s history.
Changing Laws Did Not Magically Erase Discrimination
A lot of people assume that only because laws changed at various points in history, oppression, and discrimination abruptly came to an end. This assumption is not only dangerous and mistaken, but it is also completely ahistorical. History is filled with examples of laws either completely disregarded, unenforced, overruled, or even subverted by the Supreme Court. As a result, they were executed to be entirely meaningless in the daily lives of most Black people. All through history, white resistance has been so relentless and powerful that it led to new legislation rarely, if ever, interpreted into enduring and swift justice. Let us prove our claims with some tangible examples:
Example #1
Questionably, many of the improvements due to the Civil Rights Movement (1960) merely shed light on rights that were already granted on paper. That’s right. About a century earlier, these rights were ratified in the 14th (1868) and 15th (1870) amendments. However, the localities rapidly adopted strategies (grandfather clauses, poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, and violence) to deny the Black community their legal protection.
Example #2
In the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the Supreme Court ruled school desegregation unconstitutional. However, stubborn White resistance effectively upheld segregation in the majority parts of the country until the protests in the mid-1960s.
Example #3
In the 13th Amendment, it was clearly stated that slavery, or involuntary servitude, excluded a punishment for crime. This created a loophole that allowed a new iteration of slavery, usually more brutal at times. Right after the passage of the 13th Amendment, many states promptly approved “Black codes,” which criminalized trivial infractions or benign behaviors. Thus fostering a legal mechanism for the continued enslavement of Black people.
Protest And Resistance Have Been Absolute Requirements For Racial Progress
It is certainly more digestible to believe that civil rights advances occurred naturally, simply with time, as society grew more moral. However, this point of view cannot be simply supported in terms of facts. These are raw facts. For 246 years, the Chattel slavery kept going on. Jim Crow laws, as well as rampant legalized, government-endorsed racial subordination, lasted for almost a century after that. There was no point where the White people simply decided to undo systems of inequality because it was the right thing to do. Any gain was definitely won due to centuries of indefatigable and relentless protests and resistance, from slave rebellions to the Underground Railroad to Sit-Ins, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Freedom Rides, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March from Selma to Montgomery marches, and a lot more.
When Slavery Ended, Many Slave Owners Were Compensated. However, Slaves And Their Descendants Were Not
On April 16, 1862, President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act. This law restricted slavery within the district. Moreover, it also recompensed past slaveholders an average of $300 (approx. $8,000 in 2021). Throughout the country, slaves themselves, their descendants, and their families got nothing.
Summing It All Up
The simple fact is that at every progress juncture, whenever the government finally passed legislation to allegedly rectify systems of oppression, outright theft, and mistreatment, they evidently left no tangible remuneration. As a consequence, Black people were forced to start the wealth-building process with centuries-long deficits. It must not surprise anyone that median Black household wealth today is only about 10 percent that of median white households.