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When black lives matter: Dr. Higginbotham looks to history
By Sarah Lehr
YOUNGSTOWN
Do black lives matter, or do all lives matter?
It’s a question often posed to politicians, activists and commentators.
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham addressed that question by taking a look at United States history.
Higginbotham, a professor of history and African-American studies at Harvard University and a National Humanities Medal recipient, spoke Friday evening in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center at Youngstown State University. Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sponsored her talk, with additional support from Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, the YSU Bitonte College of Health and Human Services and the YSU Office of Student Diversity Programs.
Higginbotham noted the prevalence of words like “all,” “any persons”, “all persons” and “the public” in the nation’s decrees, despite the fact that those protections and liberties did not extend to black Americans.
“Some of the very same founding fathers who declared ‘all men are created equal’ owned slaves,” Higginbotham said.
Taking her cue from Edmund Burke’s assertion “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it,” Higginbotham described how laws enshrined racism, using examples including the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision and southern Jim Crow laws.
She also drew parallels between the decades-long anti-lynching campaign, headed by the NAACP and other groups, and the modern-day Black Lives Matter movement, though she acknowledged the comparison isn’t perfect.
Many, including an older generation of black Americans, have bristled at the “rather confrontational” and “abrasive” tactics of young BLM activists, Higginbotham said.
“I will confess that I cringed,” Higginbotham said of watching televised interactions between BLM activists and presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
In a similar manner, critics — some of them black — admonished Ida B. Wells (1862- 1931) for the “unfeminine” and graphic tone of her editorials against lynching, Higginbotham argued.
The theme of black worth permeated Higginbotham’s lecture.
Ultimately, Higginbotham deferred to the words of BLM co-founder Alicia Garza: “When black lives matter, all lives will matter in America.”