Undoing Cultural Amnesia:

The Moral Urgency of Remembering Black History

Introduction

As February comes to a close, we end another Black History Month celebration, an annual US commemoration of voices within the African Diaspora. While the impetus emerged earlier, Black History Month was officially established in the U.S. in 1976 to allocate focused time on Black narratives often excluded from textbooks and national dialogue. The month, tracing back to historian Carter G. Woodson’s “Negro History Week,” begun in 1926 to spotlight and honor essential but overlooked stories. The UK’s Black History Month also arose as an effort toward more comprehensive representation, with London’s first “Black History Season” celebrated in 1987. Ghanaian analyst Akyaaba Addai-Sebo served as inspiration. Additional figures relevant to the start of Black History Month include John Henrik Clarke (credited as a pioneer of Africana Studies) and west Indian born activist, CLR James.    

Today, harnessing political and educational channels for such targeted remembrance crosses the Atlantic. What does it mean to educate the masses during Black History Month?  Carter G. Woodson said, “Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better,” (Woodson, 1933). This perspective lends itself to understanding that targeted remembrance should also explore the impact of our history upon current realities.

Both the American and British iterations aim to foreground suppressed contributions of people of African descent to national life. Programming spotlights diverse voices through history, combating revisionism that would erase state-sanctioned violence and injustice endured by Black communities. However, as knowledge threatens dominant power structures, reactionary pushback also endures on both sides, with claims that such history foments unnecessary racial divides rather than healing societal breaches (Foucault 2003). Despite this, Black History Month persists as a platform demanding ethical confrontation with difficult pasts that still echo, providing essential counternarrative (Edling 2020).

The Imperative of Remembering Black History

Recent efforts to restrict or erase Black history from school curriculums reflect a broader pattern of obscuring the realities of systemic racism in America. However, as Ethicists, Theologians and Bible Scholars, we have a moral duty to truthfully reckon with the past and present impacts of policies targeting African Americans (Edling 2020). 

The Economic Impacts of Dispossession

Slavery enabled the large-scale extraction of wealth from Black labor, depriving millions of inheritance and property ownership for generations. After emancipation, Black codes and Jim Crow laws continued to constrain economic opportunities. Ignoring this history risks masking the underlying drivers of racial disparities today. Black History Month then requires a nation to engage in self reflection, or a “critical historical inventory” (West 2021).

As scholars such as William Darity contends, modern-day structural inequalities are rooted in the racial wealth gap initiated through enslavement and Jim Crow laws. (Darity 2020; West 2021). While the median White household today holds $184,000 in wealth, the median Black household holds just $20,000. Failing to address past economic dispossession sustains inequitable systems.

The Ethical Imperative of Truth-Telling 

Erasing history contradicts core ethical principles of honesty and accountability. As a culture critic, West argues that truth-telling around America’s history of racial oppression is crucial, writing that “we must never deny or forget the ugliness, the brutishness, and the cruelty that marked our past and still set the parameters for our present” (West 2004). Airbrushing the legacy of violence and subjugation that Black Americans have endured violates obligations to moral transparency.

Christian Calls for Remembrance 

Scriptural calls to commemorate liberation from bondage and God’s demand for justice also compel remembrance of the Black struggle against dehumanization. This type of commemoration is rooted within the Christian tradition.

⁶ that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ ⁷ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever” (Jos. 4:6-7, ESV).

This also applies to remembering the horrors of the Transatlantic slave trade. Indifference to this history belies divine commands to champion the oppressed. By honoring the fullness of the Black past and present, we open pathways to an ethical interracial future marked by repair and reconciliation instead of collective amnesia.

Acknowledging Black British History and the Windrush Generation

While the enslavement of Africans took different shape in Britain compared to America, the UK also bears responsibility for truth-telling around the history of racial subjugation. A meaningful confrontation with the past must include the contributions and struggles of Black Britons across eras.

Particularly important is recognizing the legacy of the “Windrush generation”—Caribbean migrants who arrived between 1948 and 1971 to help rebuild Britain after WWII. Despite enormous contributions, members faced hostility and unjust deportations in recent years, showing the endurance of systemic racism. Christian leaders joined widespread calls for granting long-overdue amnesty. As Pastor Ade Omooba wrote, “the Windrush scandals point to a cultural amnesia about the debt owed to those who left their homes in the Caribbean to build Britain.”

Just as with slavery’s legacy in America, ethical remembrance demands acknowledging imperial abuses that reverberate through Black British communities today. Transitioning to full societal inclusion will necessitate historical reflection on state-sanctioned efforts to disenfranchise people of African descent.

Navigating the Crooked Path Toward Racial Justice

Observance of Black History Month in the US and UK illuminates the unfinished journey toward racial equality, a “crooked path” with twists and turns reflecting the enduring legacy of sins like slavery and empire. Yet God calls believers to join in straightening crooked historical paths by lifting marginalized voices.

This annual magnification of civil rights campaigns, discrimination against groups like the Windrush generation, and colonialism’s lingering impacts spotlights the need for solidarity within the larger African diaspora. Jointly probing slavery’s recurring ripple effects through economic inequality, dehumanization of Black bodies, and other cries for equity is necessary for true societal progress. “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed” (Ps. 103:6, NIV).

Christian leaders can facilitate this restorative truth-telling on state-abetted oppression using scriptural authority on uplifting the oppressed. And allies beyond faith contexts may stand in witness against historical revisionism aiming to minimize education on racial violence and obscured innovations by affected communities.

By honoring Black icons and freedom fighters through shared celebration, possibilities emerge for communication and collaboration rooted in repairing historical breaches. “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings” (Is. 58:12, NIV). As we reflect on the crooked contours of justice in the past, Black History Month focuses vision on jointly straightening the path ahead towards promised freedom.

Resources for Further Study

Free PDFs

Woodson, Carter G. Miseducation of the Negro, 1933

Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended, Picador Press, 2003

Books/Articles

Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) “Black Women’s History Week, Black History Month supporting Black Futures at BWSS,” March 3, 2022

Darity, William Jr. and Kristen Mullen, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century. University of North Carolina Press, 2020

Edling, Silvia et al. “Why is ethics important in history education? A dialogue between the various ways of understanding the relationship between ethics and historical consciousness,” in Ethics and Education, vol 15, no 3: 2020, pp. 336-354

Huler, Scott. “Duke Professor’s Research Examines the Racial Wealth Gap” Duke Magazine, Winter 2021

Miller, J. Reid. “Ethics and Race” in Stain Removal: Ethics and Race, Nov. 2016, pp. 29-57

NCLF Press Release, “The Windrush Generation,” 2018

West, Cornel. Democracy Matters, Beacon Press, 2004   

West, Cornel. “Cornel West: The Whiteness of Harvard and Wall Street Is “Jim Crow, New Style,” Truthout,2021 (interview by George Yancy)

Opinion – Black History Under Attack is Nothing New

Events

Here are a listing of London events to celebrate Black History Month, February 2024.

Videos

Videos from The 1619 Project examining lasting impacts of slavery.

Addai-Sebo, Akyaaba. Video explaining start of Black History Month UK.