Black History 365

First let me state this, to understand the history of the United States you have to consider the history of the original people that were here first….. the Indigenous people. They inhabited this land first.Everyone else who has come here after them are immigrants….. with the exception of Black people.

Unfortunately, the group that came and falsely stated that they had founded this country were the Europeans who then decided to take over and whitewash the history of the natives. When the Europeans needed manual labor they then participated in the most evil of deeds…… slavery.

To be fair, before slavery was the de facto solution of the land. There were some black folks that were here as indentured servants, which meant they could pay for their freedom ensuring that their entire lineage was free but..... in the white washing of history..... we tend to forget about them (or we lump them in with slaves).

Born free black people did exist before 1868 and these people lived where they could. They were educated and built things that would help ultimately build this country. After slavery was ended and more black people became educated, more patents on things that we still use today were issued to Black Americans. Unfortunately, most of this history is lost or changed to fit the white narrative.

That narrative being that Africa was just a place filled with animals and and savages which was taught to us in school until we started doing our studies finding out about our Kings and Queens.

Black Americans have been contributing to this country since the beginning of this country. One good example was the man who literally designed 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. His name was Benjamin Banneker and he was a free African American who helped survey and design Washington, D.C. He was born in 1731 in Ellicott's Mills, Maryland to a free African American woman and a former enslaved man.

Mr. Banneker was also the first Black presidential appointee in the United States. His other contributions and accomplishments to Washington, D.C. were helping to select the sites for the U.S. Capitol, the U.S. Treasury, the White House, and other federal buildings. Benjamin used his handmade handmade clock and almanac to make celestial observations while surveying the area. His accurate predictions of solar and lunar eclipses helped measure angles and distances.

Another example is Hiram Revels of Mississippi who became the first African American senator in 1870. Born in North Carolina in 1827, Revels attended Knox College in Illinois and later served as minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

Not forgetting the women, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress was Shirley Chisholm, who served in the House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983, representing New York's 12th congressional district. She was also the first black woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972.

No matter the time of the year everyday we can find something that a black person either invented or literally made better. We have fought in every war including the war against the british and especially the one on our own soil. Even with all of this our history is consistently hidden or whitewashed. For white americans to publicly acknowledge it, would be to admit that their is racism and all the other things they try to ignore because it makes them uncomfortable.

As we continue to celebrate Black History 365 we ......meaning all of us whether you are Black, Brown, Asian, or White .......need to really study up on all the ways that black history is really american history.