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For Black History Month, Now is the Time to Educate on its Black August Alternative

George L. Jackson and Carter G. Woodson

From San Quentin cell blocks to faculty lounges at Historically Black Colleges & Universities, 2022, saw the declaration of an alternative Black History Month.

SILICON VALLEY , CALIFORNIA , UNITED STATES , January 31, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Late August in 2022, mainstream online publications began to publish the following headlines:

Black August Uplifted as Alternative Black History Month | U.S. News & World Report

Black August uplifted as alternative Black History Month | NBC News

Black August Uplifted As Alternative Black History Month | HuffPost

Black August, the alternative to Black History Month, honors Black freedom fighters, revolutionaries, radicals | TheGrio

Black August honors radicals: An alternative Black History Month | The Black Wall Street Times

Many in America are unaware of this shift in African American political thought. But Black history is American history. In a recent posting on the YouTube Comedy channel, it posted a comedy skit by Dave Chappelle called, "I Googled the Definition of a Feminist." In it, Chappelle talks about what had happened during a First Wave Feminist meeting. At the meeting, Susan B. Anthony and the other white women did not want Sojourner Truth, who was in attendance, to speak at the meeting. Sojourner Truth was born a slave in the Dutch colony of New York. The rationale, they did not want to conflate the abolition of slavery with the suffrage of women.

But as Chappelle put it in his comedy skit, "You know how Black women are, she went up there anyway and spoke."

What is now regarded as the most famous speech on women suffrage during First Wave Feminism, Sojourner Truth gave the following speech:

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Rights Convention, Old Stone Church (since demolished), Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman? | U.S. National Park Service
https://www.nps.gov/articles/sojourner-truth.htm


To many, February is the month dedicated to celebrating African Americans’ contributions to a country where they were once enslaved. But Black History Month has an alternative: It’s called Black August.

Monifa Bandele, a leader in the Movement for Black Lives, a national coalition of BLM groups, says Black August is about learning the vast history of Black revolutionary leaders. That includes figures such as Nat Turner, who is famous for leading a slave rebellion on a southern Virginia plantation in August 1831, and Marcus Garvey, the leader of the Pan-Africanism movement and born in August 1887. It includes events such as the Haitian Revolution in 1791, and the March on Washington in 1963, both taking place in the month of August.

“This idea that there was this one narrow way that Black people resisted oppression is really a myth that is dispelled by Black August,” said Bandele

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Born in 1875, Carter G. Woodson, "the father of Black History," launched Negro History Week in 1926.

Born in 1941 in Chicago, Illinois, George Lester Jackson's 1971 shooting death at San Quentin State Prison by a prison guard became the impetus of the month-long in memoriam Black August.

But it should be noted, neither Jackson's death in 1971, nor Woodson's "Negro History Week" in 1926, were the month-, long celebratory or in memoriam we know today. Other events and actors would come along to make both Black August and Black History, month-long events.

To learn more, be sure to check out the article, "How Black August Differs From Black History Month," or the audio versions on Spotify or YouTube.

How Black August Differs From Black History Month | C-Note
https://www.c-note.org/how-black-august-differs-from-black-history-month/

How Black August Differs From Black History Month | Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1p73HddSZqG7UQVH6YUgFJ

How Black August Differs From Black History Month | YouTube
https://youtu.be/Y_-yAkXp5no/

Anna D. Smith
Anna D. Smith Fine Art and Real Estate Broker
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