The fear of African American achievement and success has reached extreme proportions, to the point where the narrative of African American history, historically omitted and distorted, is now often simply false. It is important to understand the difference between historical narratives and historical truth.

First, history: the recording and explanation of past events based upon verifiable facts. History involves a socio-historical process where accuracy is paramount. The key word is “truth.”

Secondly, “historical narrative”: a spoken or written account of events related to history that may contain omissions, distortions, mythology, and falsehoods. The historical narrative is often a set of ideas and predetermined beliefs held by a particular group, culturally conditioned and repeated over generations without critical examination of their validity.

The determination to prevent this generation and future generations of students from learning accurate African American history is based upon fear, specifically the fear that students:

  • Will overcome over 300 years of culturally ingrained beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes;

  • Will challenge and refute narratives based on myths and erroneous beliefs;

  • Will be motivated and inspired to engage in critical and corrective thinking.

Preventing the teaching of accurate United States and African American history has been a method used to:

  • Culturally condition beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes;

  • Engrain in the American mind a set of myths of white superiority and black inferiority based upon white supremacist ideology; and

  • Promote a fabricated narrative representing American history rather than the true American history.

Several new “historical narratives” have been introduced. One such narrative states that enslaved people developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied to their personal benefit. In addition to agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, and healers in the North and South. Once free, African Americans used these skills to provide for themselves and others.

The accurate history is that most ancestors of African Americans came from three major empires in West Central Africa before enslavement: Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. West Africa was the first to independently develop agriculture. Forty-three percent of Africans brought during the 18th century came from rice-producing regions, a higher proportion than from any other area.

Does Europe have the environmental conditions to grow rice? Did Europeans teach Africans how to grow rice? Rice has been cultivated in Africa since 1500, a major rice region from which enslaved people were taken. Carolina Gold, cotton, and indigo made South Carolina and other colonies industrial giants. Who possessed the agricultural knowledge and technology? The truth: Who taught whom? In addition, Africans adopted the use of iron technology to create sturdier farm tools.

Traditional African healing is the oldest and most diverse of the world's indigenous healing practices. Enslaved healers identified at least 45 African herbs in South Carolina. Healers brought knowledge and skill in limb amputation, circumcision, tooth extraction, cyst or tumor removal, broken bone setting, and vaccinations. Smallpox was an epidemic in the colonies in the 1700s. Onesimus, an enslaved person, offered a solution to Cotton Mather that had been practiced in Ghana for centuries—the first introduction of the idea of inoculation for infectious diseases.

Africa demonstrates the world’s earliest known use of mathematical measuring tools and calculation. African artifacts and bones provide evidence of this. For centuries, this knowledge was an aspect of African cultural knowledge for celestial navigation and cultural significance. Africans smelted iron over 2,500 years ago, and ancient Tanzanians produced carbon steel.

Enslaved Africans built the Capitol, the White House, the enormous plantation mansions and other famous monuments. Where did they acquire this knowledge and skill? Did they learn it from their European enslavers, or what is the historical truth? Africa provided a highly advanced system of architecture and engineering, developed in ancient Africa. The world's oldest and greatest architectural masterpieces are in Africa. The Great Walls of Benin, the largest single manmade site on the planet, were erected between the 7th and 15th centuries. The walls are said to be four times as long as the Great Wall of China and were ravaged by the British in 1897. Great Zimbabwe, erected between the 11th and 15th centuries, contains the Great Enclosure, a gigantic stone building reaching 36 feet high and located in the middle of Great Zimbabwe.

In addition, Africa was a model for human expression and the utilitarian function of art, music, and dance. African art influenced Western art, Cubism, Modernism, and Pablo Picasso. Rock painting, sculpture, fabrics (Kente cloth, mud cloth, brass and wood plaques and sculpture; 900 bronzes in the British Museum) all demonstrate this. Africa was a model for the early development of musical instruments; the first to develop stringed instruments: guitar, 27-stringed harp and xylophone, flutes, cymbals, and drums. One of the first universities in the world was in Timbuktu, the Sankore Mosque, in the 1100s.

A second “historical narrative” says that racially motivated attacks against African Americans included acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans. The accurate history, however, is that after Northern troops pulled out of the South, ending Reconstruction, Black people became very vulnerable to race riots, massacres, mob attacks, lynchings, and loss of life and land. Black people did not instigate these racial attacks. In Ocoee, Florida, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Washington, DC, actions were taken by veterans of WWI to protect their families and communities. They did not initiate violence. However, white supremacist ideology asserts that African Americans do not have the right to defend themselves against whites, even to protect themselves, their families, and communities.

The most grievous narrative, however, pertains to the mental well-being of America’s children and youth. The narrative states that teaching accurate African American history will cause students to experience psychotic distress due to their race or color. White students will feel a sense of guilt and shame, while African American students will feel psychological trauma. Teaching accurate African American history will portray whites as having privilege and African Americans as being oppressed.

However, if taught correctly and truthfully, accurate African American history will allow white students to learn that not all white people embraced white supremacy; many were abolitionists, involved in the civil rights movement, and even gave their lives for the cause. They will learn how yeoman and poor whites were impacted by the enslavement of Black people. Finally, they will be able to make critical judgments based on individual behavior versus a mass-conditioned image of a group.

African American students will feel a sense of pride and dignity in learning of resistance to enslavement, such as the Maroons, the creation of the Seminoles by Creek Indians and Africans, and the Second Seminole War, regarded as the “Negro” War. They will learn about inventors and other individuals who contributed to the development of the United States. African American students learning their true history will not feel like victims but rather as victors. Adherents to white supremacist ideology do not want either of these positive outcomes for American children and youth revealed.

This African American History Month does not begin with the usual discussion of enslavement; African American history did not begin there. Let the discussion begin with the accurate history of the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires from which African ancestors came. Focus on the knowledge and skills these ancestors brought with them and the exceptional contributions these ancestors and their descendants have made to America.