February is Black History Month! This is a time for all of us to recognize and reflect on past and present experiences, challenges, and successes of Black people within our own communities and abroad.
Little history lesson for my fellow nerds in the back, in 1995, after a motion by politician Jean Augustine, Canada's House of Commons officially recognized February as Black History Month and honoured Black Canadians. In 2008, Senator Donald Oliver moved to have the Senate officially recognize Black History Month, which was unanimously approved. Now that info I found on the good ole Wikipedia, but along with that little taster of information, I figured we could look into some other interesting facts that I also found along the information highway.
Liberia was founded and colonized by expatriates. The West African country is one of two sovereign states in the world that started as a colony for ex-slaves and marginalized Black people. Sierra Leone is the other.
Tice Davids, a runaway slave from Kentucky, was the inspiration for the first usage of the term “Underground Railroad.” When he swam across the Ohio River to freedom, his former owner assumed he’d drowned and told the local paper if Davids had escaped, he must have travelled on "an underground railroad." (Davids actually made it alive and well.)
Rapper Jay-Z reportedly developed his stage name as a reference to New York's J/Z subway lines, which have a stop in his Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, neighbourhood.
Before he became an NBA legend, Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
Condoleezza Rice entered the University of Denver at the age of 15 and earned her Ph.D. by age 26.
Because he worked during the height of segregation, most of the homes designed by African American architect Paul R. Williams had deeds that barred Black people from buying them.
Martin Luther King Jr., Barbara Walters, and Anne Frank were all born in the same year, 1929.
The Black Lives Matter movement was nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. Other recipients of the Nobel prize for antiracist movements also include Albert Luthuli in 1960 and Nelson Mandela in 1993.
So there is just a small sample of some of the challenges and achievements that have shaped Black History. While we celebrate their successes, let us also be reminded of the dark history in which they suffered, and work together to support a future with the equal and fair treatment of all people of colour.
If you have any other interesting facts for Black History Month, please let us know, we would love to hear them.
Wishing you an educational Black History Month and a wonderful February.
From all of us at KCC!
