As someone who had to take an Introduction to African American History course in college to actually learn more than the few paragraphs of black history that we learn in Elementary and High school, I have come to appreciate any opportunity that presents more learning about the history of my race. Of course, in Kenya I did learn Kenyan history and we didn’t have a month devoted to that as we are all Kenyans there. So in comparison, I find Black History Month to not be enough as a significant portion of history has been lost or hidden (I think hidden is more appropriate because if I could learn a lot more in college, a lot more can be taught at all levels of schooling).

My experience with Black History Month, especially in high school, was that we would discuss the same ten people every year (Martin Luther King Jr, Madame CJ Walker, Rosa Parks, and I am sure you can name the rest). I don’t understand why Black History Month needs a poster boy: MLK and poster girl: Rosa Parks. I think each year we should try to highlight more and more African Americans that we have never heard of, such as Robert Smalls who became a sea captain during the civil war which led President Lincoln to accept black soldiers in the war. I had to go to college to learn about Robert Smalls as well as about the black bourgeoisie and the industrial prison complex which constitutes modern day slavery of minorities who are disproportionally imprisoned as compared to whites (if you don’t believe me read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander).

This year I celebrated Black History Month by watching I Am Not Your Negro which highlights James Baldwin’s involvement in the civil rights movement and his relationships with the key figures of that time, namely Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers. I also watched Hidden Figures during Christmas which helped me to learn about other black women who contributed to NASA’s advancements (as I already knew about Mae Jemison who was the first black female astronaut and is included in that list of the 10 people we hear about every black history month). Maybe if I had learned about Katherine Johnson, the mathematical genius behind the calculations for the trajectories to the moon, I would have been inspired to choose a career in Math or engineering instead of health sciences. However, the movie was inspiring to me even as a pharmacy major where there are not many black students at my school and it sometimes feel like we have to work twice as hard to get the same acknowledgement. Hidden Figures definitely touched my heart on several levels including the balance of career and family that we women often have to worry about. During moments of wanting to give up, I now tell myself that if these women could achieve what they did in segregation era, I can also find a way.

And that’s exactly why I think learning about other characters in the scheme of black history is so important. We need continuous inspiration and therefore, we must widen the spectrum of black history from the 10 key figures that we always talk about to the infinite number of characters that we can learn about.

I don’t think this is the appropriate time to reveal that I also watched Get Out yesterday and despite the era of a black president, racists do exist and the use of black people as vessels of labor, tools stripped of their humanity, is not new. However, the movie is just so well-written and nuanced that I recommend everyone to watch it. Sure it is a horror film and has nothing to do with black history, except for the fact that similar gruesome things have happened to black people throughout history but I won’t mention which since that might give away the story.

As we are now in March and Black History was quintessentially awarded the shortest month of the year, I do hope that all of you were able to learn something new this year about someone other than the aforementioned 10 figures that we usually reuse and recycle. If not, why not use the rest of the year to do the same as time is in fact relative.

-originally written July 21, 2010

So this post is sort of dedicated to the teacher I have been helping along with Martin at the Art Museum. By the way, this is not a good dedication. Not that I don’t like the teacher in fact I do, let’s call him Mr.Brown cause he is brown (no offense intended). Anyway it was something that he said that caught my attention( and not in a good way). Ok, so i am just setting up the paint station, Martin- who happens to be white- is out of the room at the moment and he says to me “Mercy, how is it dealing with black kids when you are so smart”. So at that moment i’m like wait a second is that what i just heard from this black person. So i know he was referring to African Americans in general when he mentioned black people since we are in America. So my response was that ever since I had been living here, I have gone to school for smart people (i.e. magnet schools -google for reference). So irregardless of race, we were all there to learn. Sure there was the bullies but mainly those bullies bullied out of jealousy of my intelligence like when I would teach the class a shortcut I had discovered for a Math question. So we went on talking where he stated “all these black children here are just lazy, don’t want to use their brains”. What i wanted to say was “that’s a generalization and i think it’s unfair to make that statement considering there are black children who work hard in school”. But what i said was “true. but I usually don’t surround myself with those people. I usually hang out with foreigners or children of foreigners”. But recently, I have started hanging out with the black kids of my IB college program and these are people who are fully committed to success like me. So anyway, back to Mr.Brown. The conversations transitions  to talking about the diversity in our schools. Martin goes to a private school-primarily white- and says that he wishes that even though he is friends with a Nigerian and Korean, he wishes there was more diversity.

There is a saying that “behind every great man, is a woman”, yet that woman rarely every gets the credit she deserves. Nowhere is that more true than in the story of Winnie Mandela. You might think that you already know why but trust me, you don’t know have the full details. Don’t feel bad though. I didn’t have the complete story until I did the research myself in order to compete for $1,000 by delivering a speech on the aforementioned topic. I’ll give you a spoiler and let you know that I won. Whether I deserved to win or not can be decided by you. Here’s the speech for you….enjoy (and give me some feedback, please).

-originally presented on March 2014

>>>Good evening Ladies & Gentleman. I hope you got your thinking caps on because I have couple questions for you. With a show of hands, how many of you know who Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela is? Now how many of you know who Winnie Mandela is? I am sorry to have engaged in trickery to prove a point but Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela and Winnie Mandela are the same person. Now why is it that we fail to recognize her maiden name? Perhaps it is best explained by the belief that “behind every great man is a woman”. The key word in that oh so cliché quote is “behind”. That word “behind” belittles the efforts of great women in history who become overshadowed by their male partners. This is best exemplified in the story of Winnie Mandela whose struggles & contributions towards the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa marked her as a leader in her own right.

Even before she married Nelson Mandela, Winnie’s name was associated with greatness. In 1955, while South Africa was under apartheid, she rejected a scholarship offer to continue her studies in the United States and instead she became the first qualified black social worker at the Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg. Winnie made this remarkable decision due to her dedication to her people and her desire to improve the conditions in South Africa. Winnie also realized that politics was a tool that could be used to enact change and therefore she became involved in the African National Congress or the ANC. At the time Nelson Mandela was heavily involved with the ANC as the president of the Youth League and naturally, Winnie and Nelson became partners, politically and of course romantically. However, their newly wedded marriage was interrupted in 1964 when Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison. Despite having to raise two young daughters on her own, Winnie was devoted to the anti-apartheid movement and continued working with the ANC. As such, the white-supremacist apartheid government considered Winnie a threat to the status quo. In the government’s efforts to restrain her, Winnie was arrested in 1969 under the Suppression of Terrorism Act. After her arrest she was tortured in solitary confinement for 17 months but even that did not break Winnie. She continued her efforts to end apartheid and was arrested several more times. As such, she became known as a leader and the title “Mother of the Nation” was bestowed upon her.

In 1976 when hundreds of students were killed in uprisings in Soweto, Winnie was placed in house arrest in a remote town due to the government’s fear of retaliation when she formed the Black Women’s Federation and the Black Parents’ Association that sought to empower Black South Africans. While under house arrest in the remote township of Brandfort, she founded a birthing center and a clinic with a local doctor in order to help improve the health conditions in the area since Blacks did not have equal access to health care in apartheid South Africa. Despite house arrest, Winnie also persisted in speaking out against apartheid and in 1981 she made a statement to BBC about the economic power of black South Africans and their ability to crush the system.

During this difficult time of isolation and oppression, she kept the ANC alive and more importantly, she kept Mandela’s memory alive. Winnie did not forget Mandela and she did not let South Africa forget either. When she was released from house arrest and returned to the black township of Soweto, she made sure that Mandela’s name was still relevant in the struggle of freedom and that the people of South Africa still looked to him as a leader. As such, the so-called roles of leadership had been reversed; now Winnie was seen as the great woman and Nelson as the man behind her. She was the “Mother of the Nation”.

Twenty -seven years after his detainment, in 1991 Nelson Mandela walked out of prison with Winnie by his side. Even with his release, Winnie never went back to being the woman behind the great man. She supported him to help him gain favor of the people, as she was now a leader in her own right. In 1993 she was elected president of the ANC Women’s League and the following year, during the 1994 elections, when Nelson was elected president of the free republic of South Africa, she was appointed deputy minister of Arts, Culture, and Science and Technology. This appointment recognized her not only as a leader but also as a freedom fighter securing the liberation of South Africa.

I’m sure you are all aware that Winnie’s reputation is not without controversy. But despite these controversies, we must remember that no leader is perfect, they are human just like us, they have flaws just like us & they make mistakes just like us. Therefore, in light of the accusations against her, we must not forget Winnie’s great contributions to the nation of South Africa & to the world. We must remember her as the woman that is not left behind, we must remember her as the “Mother of the Nation”.<<<