# 12 WHY I THINK IT IS VITAL FOR THE BLACK COMMUNITY TO LEARN ABOUT ITS HERITAGE

# 12 WHY I THINK IT IS VITAL FOR THE BLACK COMMUNITY TO LEARN ABOUT ITS HERITAGE
by Vernon M. Herron

Heritage is equated with culture and history. For the sake of this writing, I define culture as customary beliefs, social forms, behavioral patterns and material traits of a racial, religious or social group and transmitted to succeeding generations. History, then is a chronological record of past events which influence the present.

African Americans are endowed with a heritage, molded with diverse experiences from the mother land- the cradle of civilization- to this day of ‘shinning stars’ in America. In fact, the heritage of African Americans has evolved through five periods of history which has molded the ‘Black Experience’ depending on knowledge, attitude and disposition. Those periods are significant as experienced:

• On the continent of Africa

• In America during slavery

• After emancipation in 1865

• During the Civil Rights years

• During the period of integration

Let us all be reminded that a study of 13th century Africa reveals a noble heritage consisting of Empires, a mastery of waterways, advancement in architecture and technology, noted universities, professors, doctors, Kings, Queens, skilled draughtsmen , experts in geometry, grounded in arithmetic, musicians, philosophers, medicine and legal matters. What a heritage?
Such a civilization was disrupted with European commando raids. Through force, many Africans were captured and sold into slavery at trading posts and transported to a new world through the middle passage. The end result was a disruption of a noble civilization, of family life and an uprooted ness from a homeland.

The ‘black experience’ in America during the enslaved period included a plantation life of forced labor. In 1859, Justice Tanner in the Dred Scott decision, declared the African Americans to be 3/5 of a man or a non person, if you please. With the Emancipation Proclamation and the passage of the 13th amendment, African Americans were legally free only. The ‘black code’ and other tactics were created for the continued denial of personhood. This bleak period is an integral part of African Americans’ heritage and must be known.

The Civil Rights Movement includes the Thirteenth Amendment which abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment which guaranteed citizenship rights and the Fifteenth Amendment which barred voting rights restriction based on race. Yes, the 13th amendment freed Blacks, the 14th made them citizens and the 15th gave them the right to vote. Many vigilante groups sought to drive Blacks from the political life through acts of terror and intimidation. State governments enacted laws which restricted suffrage in the South. The Civil Rights Era was created to secure the benefits of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.

Jim Crow served to remind African Americans that they were second-class citizens. But the 1954 Supreme Court decision in the Brown vs Board of Education case overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine. This decision, according to The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, provided the legal basis for the protesting and the challenging years in which Blacks gained excess to the political process, the educational system, health issues and basic human services.

This is my noble history and heritage. It bears repeating. This saga has spanned some eight curies from Black Nobility of the 13 century Africa to today’s reality in which approximately 10,000 African Americans hold elected offices in the United States. Without knowledge and memory of the past, one lives unconnected to the present and future.

For years, the media has distorted the culture of African Americans as grinning, shiftless buffoons. Alex Haley, very well states the results as Blacks “have tended variously to manifest shame of their heritage and hence of their contemporary selves.” These images we must struggle to disperse.

Having experienced an uprootedness from the homeland; a denial of personhood; and a rejection of personal freedom, the Black community must reconnect to its noble heritage. It offers HOPE, POWER AND SELF ESTEEM.

It has been written that “the life style of Blacks and the unmitigated pressures [sought] to destroy our black family during our bondage.”

It is vital for the Black Community to learn about its heritage. Herein lies an unlimited potential and that potential includes me.