ERNIE BROWN Black History Month makes up for centuries of omission

Black History Month is under way, but is the celebration of the triumphs and travails of black people in America still relevant in the 21st century?
Some would answer no. After all, blacks have made tremendous strides in this country and now hold many prominent positions in government, business, sports and entertainment.
Others would answer yes, provided that the history of Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Muslim-Americans, Irish-Americans, Greek-Americans, American Indians, and every other ethnic group that has formed this melting pot we call the United States is given equal billing.
I submit this argument: If the numerous positive achievements of blacks in this country from the 1600s until now had been rightfully included, and not excluded, from American history, there would have been no need for black history month.
The sad truth is that was not done.
Founder
Dr. Carter G. Woodson dedicated his life to making sure the achievements of black Americans were given their rightful place in this country's history.
He launched Negro History Week in 1926, chosen in the second week of February between the birthdays of Frederick Douglass, former slave, abolitionist, renowned speaker and author, and President Abraham Lincoln. The week became Black History Month in 1976.
This was the black history I learned in elementary and high school: Africans were brought to the American continent in slave ships; Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in 1863; there was a paragraph or two on the accomplishments of Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver; blacks migrated from the South to the North for better jobs in the 1930s; and Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball in 1947. That was it.
The achievements of P. Ross Berry, a black brick mason who built many of Youngstown's landmarks, was never discussed in the city classrooms I attended from 1957 until 1970.
Learning more
It wasn't until I took a black history course at Ohio State University did I learn about Crispus Attucks, Dr. Charles Drew, Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson and A. Philip Randolph.
It was still later that I learned about Benjamin Banneker, the black man who did survey work and design for the District of Columbia; Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a pioneer in open-heart surgery, who, in 1891, founded Provident Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago, the oldest free-standing black owned hospital in the United States; and Bessie Coleman, the world's first black aviator who had to go to France to learn how to fly because no American instructors would teach her.
I love football, but I didn't know that Fritz Pollard was the first black quarterback and head coach in the National Football League and a founder of one of the first all-black investment securities companies.
Question
Why were the achievements of such notable pioneers kept away not only from black Americans but all Americans?
Woodson, who was born in 1875 in Virginia, knew the answer. It was a combination of racism and historical misinterpretation that prevented the achievements of black people from coming to the forefront.
That is why Woodson, who earned his doctorate degree in history from Harvard University, dedicated himself to the painstaking research about his people and their accomplishments. He also believed that once the achievements of blacks were included in American history as a whole, there would no longer be a need for a Negro history week.
He said, "The achievements of the Negro, properly set forth, will crown him as a factor in early human progress and a maker of modern civilization."
The contributions of black Americans to our nation's greatness must never be forgotten. The struggles of a people once bought and sold as property should never be given short shrift.
As I tell my children, they are only five decades removed from drinking from separate water fountains, using "colored-only" bathrooms, and being denied the right to vote solely because of their skin color.
Let us all use this month to reflect upon and remember this truth: Black history is, and always will be, an integral part of American history that should never be forgotten.
ebrown@vindy.com