For the entire month of February, I dedicated my Facebook status messages to Black History Month. My posts have covered Black History tidbits from Madam CJ Walker being the first African American woman millionaire, to the current inhumane treatment The Angola 3 face by being in solitary confinement for nearly 40 years in a Louisiana State penitentiary, to local events going on in the Metro DC area.
I have always exalted a sense of pride when I referenced my blackness. Everything from the pain of slavery to the constant struggle for freedom leaves me prideful. I believe this sense of pride resides in all black people although at times it becomes too hard to express. This is what prompted my Facebook status updates.
We wear our blackness every day, but most people don’t know what that means or feels like for us. Indeed, the burdens are heavy but our pride goes deep. The status messages allowed me to help share and celebrate our triumphs in America, which in turn reinserts that pride into our everyday lives. Black History Month is a great vehicle for that but my hope is that my status messages help us all to think more deeply about the importance of our heritage and our culture year around.
Although my Facebook status messages can do very little to change the world, they can however, evoke feelings and thoughts into the readers who can then in turn make change.
Latricia Allen is the grants manager at Washington Area Women’s Foundation.