The thing about Black History Month is that it's too short - February is the shortest month - and it's too often a simplistic display of what might be called black trivia. Who invented the traffic light? Who came up with the plan for Washington? Who came up with umpty-hundred uses for peanuts?
But the other night I saw, and, more important, felt a reason to celebrate. It was an occasion to remind us that it's often young people who spur us to reform. These young folks, ranging in age from the teens to the 40s - were blacks, whites, Latinos and Asians who were being honored for their activism. It was, as the Rev. James Forbes put it in his inimitable style, an affirmation "that it's the people who make the difference when they learn to walk together."
The honorees represented a continuation of the "Long Walk to Freedom." An exhibit of that name is on display at Riverside Church, giving recognition to 16 people, black and white, whose efforts during the civil rights movement made a difference but went largely unrecognized. History student that I am, I didn't know, for instance, that Roberta Yancy, now a public relations specialist at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, first made her mark as a high school student in Pennsylvania. She challenged the "whites only" snack bars in her hometown and was charged with disorderly conduct for doing so. After she graduated from Barnard College in 1962, she went on to a leadership role in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Who knew?
And I certainly had not heard of the younger generation of men and women honored Sunday night. Folks like Rachel Lloyd, whose organization, GEMS - Girls Educational and Mentoring Services - deals with the sexual exploitation of young women.
Gessy Nixon, who grew up in an abusive home, works through Voices of Youth to train those who manage the foster care system, providing the perspective of young people who've come through that system.
Hosea Givan is humbled by the notion his work carries on the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others we revere in February. But he also sees his role as different from theirs: "If I can save 20 lives a year or can redirect 20 lives a year, that's a major contribution. I don't have to lead a march to make an impact."
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
He and the others - Isis Sapp-Grant, Jane Bai, Chhaya Chhoum, Sayu Bhojwani, Oona Chatterjee, Andrew Friedman, Jason Warwin, Susan Wilcox, Khary Lazarre-White - are there "in the biting cold and the searing heat," as Forbes put it. As their mentor, the Rev. Alfonso Wyatt, vice president of the Fund for the City of New York, made clear, they often operate not on shoestring budgets but on "wish budgets." And they're tackling issues that many of us older folks don't spend our days dwelling on: gentrification, welfare benefits, immigration, domestic violence, sexual abuse, racism and economic inequality.
"Struggle," said Wyatt, is what people do when they "care so much for others that they are willing to inconvenience themselves."
I can't think of a better way to observe Black History Month, that time of the year when we focus on all that black folks have contributed - and still contribute - to the making of America. The struggle does continue.
by E.R. Shipp
Knight Ridder-Tribune
E.R. Shipp is a columnist for the New York Daily News. She won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1996. Readers may write to her at eshipp2002@hotmail.com.
