Who lived for you to stand where you are today?
Who died for you to have access to the things that you have today?
Whose shoulders are you standing upon?
Whose story will you tell?
Who will tell your story someday?
Questions like these have been running through my head for the past few weeks as I have reflected on why Black History Month is important to me.
When I look back on my upbringing and how I have viewed history, I recognize that it was consistently deprived of people that looked like me. As a young child, I did not see anything wrong with it and honestly did not understand why it mattered. But as I have grown and opened my heart to really see what the world is like around me, I began to question, like many others before me, “Where are they?” Where are the people who laid down pavement, who broke down the walls and opened up doors that I now get to confidently walk through today?
Marian Anderson, Joseph Bologne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges), Camilla Williams, William Grant Still, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Scott Joplin, George W. McLaurin, Drusilla Dunjee Houston, William Henry Twine, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, Edward Melvin Porter, Henry Lewis….
These are only a few names of many, many more who led the way…
All names that most of us do not recognize. The names of African American men and woman whose legacies run through these Oklahoma City streets and through education, through politics, through American theaters and so much more. If I am being completely honest, I did not know much about them before this past week.
But the more I reflected on their achievements, their fears, their disappointments, their courageous acts, their significance and their honesty, I recognized that I would not be able to walk through the halls of this school, be asked to sing on the stage of the Kirkpatrick Theatre or have the privilege to write for this newspaper if it had not been for these names.
They not only laid the foundation for my classmates and me, but also for there to be a Martin Luther King Jr., a Barack and Michelle, a Michael Todd, a Beyoncé, a Leontyne Price, a Regina King, a Tyler Perry, a Cardi B, a Tyler the Creator, a Kendrick Lamar, a Phylicia Rashad, a Debbie Allen, a Leona Mitchell, a Simon Estes, a Diahann Carroll, a Viola Davis, a Denzel Washington, an Audra McDonald, an Eddie Murphy and anyone else you can think of.
The hardest thing to acknowledge are those who attended the sit-ins, who knocked on the doors, led the organizations, filed the lawsuit, wrote in the minority newspapers, made the application and never got to see the Promised Land. Whose names and photos are not included in the movies or in our history books and never will be, because they are nowhere to be found. Those who were told no over and over again and never received that satisfying release for that one yes.
Those ordinary people who fought and climbed over barriers for the “firsts” to hear the answers they were deprived of. Those people who advocated for people like me to have their chance under the sun. Those whose lives contributed to the foundation that I have the privilege to walk and rest my feet upon.
Who tells their story?
Who will acknowledge their life?
Who will remember them?
Who will say their names?
Will you?
Will you not only acknowledge the complexity of the life that these people lived, but continue to build on it, for the generations that have not yet been thought of?
Will you tell the story, not just of those who were graced with a platform to speak from, but also of those who have a voice that rings just as loud from the sidewalk?
Will you live a life that shines a light on their stories while you find your purpose and prepare for your own life?
So, I ask you again…
Who lived for you to stand where you are today?
Who died for you to have access to the things that you have today?
Whose shoulders are you standing upon?
Whose story will you tell?
And who will tell your story someday?
This piece was written and submitted by Viviana Goodwin.
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