Inspiration for a better tomorrow

February 1, 2023

For more than 50 years, Americans have celebrated the achievements and history of Black people during Black History Month.

Recently, I had the occasion to think back on my own quest to better understand the history of Black people, their contributions, and their sacrifices when I spoke at a breakfast to honor the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   

I was in the sixth grade, attending school in Clovis, New Mexico, where my military dad was stationed at Cannon Air Force Base, when Dr. King died. My parents were shocked and saddened by his death — in mourning for the loss of a great man and filled with a heightened sense of worry for their children.  

As for me, I was young enough to not fully comprehend the loss but old enough to recognize the pervasiveness of anti-Black racism and discrimination. I also recognized, even at that age, the Black and white divide in America to include who was deemed worthy of representation and who wasn’t — be it in what and how we are taught or in where and how we live and work.

In fact, throughout my schooling, I was struck by the absence of Black people and the lack of acknowledgement of the Black experience in books and other mainstream media. In the first grade, in Dover, Delaware, I recall the Dick and Jane series for early readers centered on a white family in the suburbs and their dog, Spot. I wondered, where were the Black families and the Black neighborhood. 

When I entered high school, buoyed by a better understanding of the civil rights movement, I was reading everything I could find written by and about Blacks, delving into our history and culture, our innovations, our struggles, and our resilience. In my quest, I learned how, as a people, we survived slavery, lynchings, and Jim Crow; we provided life-changing and world-saving innovations, such as Charles Drew’s inventions that allow long-term storage of blood plasma, leading to the first blood banks; we demonstrated self-reliance through the creation of thriving Black businesses; and we shared with the world a rich culture of music, literature, and arts.

As part of a yearlong independent study project in high school, I focused on the Harlem Renaissance. Several Harlem Renaissance writers spoke to me — James Baldwin for his fiery, unflinching, and omniscient coverage of the Black experience; W.E.B. Du Bois for his concept of double consciousness, the twoness of being Black and being American; and Zora Neale Hurston for her capture of the authentic voice of those she wrote about.    

But one writer more than any, Langston Hughes, captured my attention. To me, Langston brought power, depth, and humanity to the Black experience. In his writing, he provided the means for sensemaking and coping, he used humor to illuminate the absurdity of injustice, and, particularly through his poetry, he provided inspiration for a better tomorrow.

In his poem I, Too, he wrote,

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

This poem helped me see more clearly my own experience of invisibility in a white-dominated culture, and it served as an inspiration for action. I sought and created opportunities to make Black people visible wherever possible. In high school, I started the first Black Culture Club. In college, I worked to attract and retain Black students in science majors, and in my graduate studies, I focused on research pertinent to Blacks. I also continued to be a student of the Harlem Renaissance, a period infused with Black pride and Black identity that helped pave the way for the civil rights movement.

In his “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, MLK said these words: “So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

King’s passionate call for equality and freedom became one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement. Sixty years later, the words “I have a dream” rightly continue to resonate and reverberate around the world. As a Black woman, I continue to find meaning in those words, in the poetry of Langston Hughes, and in the rich history of the Black experience. My hope during this Black History Month is that others do, too.

Warmly,