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Black History is Everyone's History

© Aiesha Turman

I have been planning on writing something about black history month for quite some time. I had no clue what I was going to write, but figured that I would not write it during Black History Month because it would get "lost" amongst the ceaseless conversations and debates that occur every February. This topic is a very sensitive area for some and rarely thought of by others. I am no stranger to dialogue about race, but something really interesting happened the first week of February.

I was at home when I received a phone call from my mother. I believe the date was February 1st and she was calling to inform me that Jeopardy had a black category in honor of the month. I always get excited when there are "black questions" on Jeopardy (which happens to be my all time favorite t.v. show), so I turned on the t.v. and waited...and waited. It was a little obvious that all three of the contestants were a little nervous about picking the black category, because they kept bypassing it in favor of others like "hodge podge". Finally, someone chose the category. The first exchange went something like this: "This Diana Ross film shares the name with a type of wood." As I sat there on my couch yelling "Mahogany!", one of the contestants buzzed in and said, "What is Evergreen"? Evergreen? I thought to myself that maybe this person was just not versed in film, but just about every black person I know would have gotten the answer right. Maybe a Diana Ross film is not the perfect example, so here's another.

While I was in New Orleans for vacation a couple of weeks ago (It was wonderful, by the way!), my boyfriend and I decided to go on a cemetery tour. I noticed that he and I were the only two black folks on the tour save for the guide, but it didn't bother me - I was ready to walk through one of these infamous cities of the dead. We toured St. Louis Cemetery #1. The entire time, our guide was eschewing facts about New Orleans history, various plagues of yellow fever and why they bury people the way they do. Part of the way through the tour, we stopped at a tomb. Our guide pointed out one of those preservation society plaques that said that Homer Plessy was buried on this spot. As soon as I saw the name, I asked if this was the Homer Plessy of Plessy v. Ferguson fame. The guide answered "yes" and then asked the group - about 10 of us - if we knew who Homer Plessy was and only my boyfriend and I raised our hands.

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