We choose our language for a purpose. As Afrikan people, We choose our language to facilitate understanding and to facilitate action. When deciding what terms to attach to a concept We wish to convey, We ask ourselves, “What oes what We call it facilitate?” An article published four years ago in Hood Communist asks this question.
Four years ago, Hood Communist published the article “Why We Say: Fuck Black History Month.” The article validly critiques elements of what has become the mainstream understanding of Black History Month (BHM). Four main points of critique for BHM are identified:
- The disappearance of Radical African Organizations
- The exclusion of Africa and the Diaspora
- The erasure of non-cis male African revolutionaries
- The promotion of neo-colonial propaganda
The article’s conclusion is the proposed renaming of February to become “African Liberation Month,” motivated by a righteous rejection of these four points of critique. These critiques of BHM are valid and must be dealt with. And still, the aspects critiqued in “Fuck BHM” are not all that Black History Month is. Nor are they, one might say, true to the nia of the Black History Month tradition. Rather, these aspects are the product of the (neo)liberal affront on Black History Month — of the co-opting, distorting, and debasing of Black History Month toward (neo)liberal, amerikkkan imperial aims. Any serious study of the tradition of Black History Month reveals that the tenets of this (neo)liberal affront on Black History Month are incompatible with the core principles of the fugitive intellectual tradition of the celebration.
Let Us properly examine the characteristics of this affront and the principles at the root of our tradition, and let Us evaluate for ourselves the true nature of Black History Month.
Contextualizing “Fuck BHM”: The (Neo)Liberal Affront on Black History Month
i choose to refer to the concerted efforts by liberals to co-opt Black History Month and twist it to liberal, assimilationist ends as what it is: the (neo)liberal affront on Black History Month. This affront commandeers the tradition of Black History Month under the aegis of white historiography, applying a white philosophy of history — with its attendant white pseudo-supremacy, patriarchy, and linearly progressive understanding of human development — to the interpretation of Black life.
Of course, one element of Black History Month is celebrating the achievements of Afrikan people in the world. However, the (neo)liberal affront recasts what the founders of Negro History Week, the week-long observance that would eventually expand into Black History Month, meant by “achievements.” In his article “The Celebration of Negro History Week, 1927,” Carter G. Woodson — who first conceived of Negro History Week — says that “we should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. . . . How he [sic] has influenced the development of civilization.” The (neo)liberal affront on Black History Month, on the other hand, restricts this emphasis to one of the Negro in amerikkkan history. It seeks to emphasize how so-called African Americans have influenced the development of amerikkkan capitalism and furthered the amerikkkan national project. In doing so, it limits the ways that Afrikans in the united states imagine ourselves. This restriction of Black history to amerikkkan history encourages the right-wing, amerikkkan nationalism that We have come to see among some groups of New Afrikan people. If our conception of our own history is confined to the amerikkkan project, what choice might We have to imagine ourselves outside of an amerikkkan context.
Beyond confining Black history to amerikkkan history, the (neo)liberal affront on Black History Month seeks to discipline Black life by imposing white historiographical methods to the telling of Black history. The result is not only whitewashed accounts of the lives of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., or demonized accounts of those like Malcolm X; the result is also an account of Black life that has been mutilated to fit within the confines of a European conception of life. This is a conception which contends that human history is a constant progression from a lower to a higher state of existence, and one that privileges a certain genre of human as being the sole agents of human history and thereby champions of progress. This is a conception that severely limits what “human being” can even mean, by collapsing social bodies down to physical bodies in order to enforce social and economic order, whether it be through systems called “race,” “gender,” or the like. When Black life is viewed through this lens, the strivings of ordinary Black folk, of all different kinds of Black people, are rendered invisible.* It is the application of white historiographical methods to Black history, which itself is part of the consistent attempt to capture Black life within the confines of European order, rather than the tradition or the essence of Black History Month itself that gives rise to these distorted pictures of Black history.
The end goal of these efforts is always to subjugate Black life within a white pseudo-supremacist world order. Limiting Afrikan people’s imaginations and freedom dreams by confining Black life to white conceptions of history through the (neo)liberal affront on Black History Month is one tactic toward this end. But if this is the nature of the affront on the tradition of Black History Month, then what is the nature of the tradition itself?
Negro History Week: The Origins of BHM, or the Nia of Black History Month
Woodson first presents the idea for Negro History Week (NHW) to other Black folks a century ago. His professed goal was to rescue Afrikan history from becoming “a negligible factor in the thought of the world.” It’s from a critique rather than a reinforcement of white historiography, the method of writing history that tells us the human experience is shaped progressively over time by a series of Great Men, that Woodson formulates the idea for NHW. In fact, in Woodson’s view, a white conception of history is “practically no conception of history.” This white conception is inherently racist and nationalist. In Woodson’s view, the history of Black people needs to be told and needs to be practiced differently. Examining Woodson’s view of Black life and Black history reveals a conception of Black life that is not limited to the narrow confines of Western notions of nationalism. We come to see a conception of Black life that understands Afrikan people on our own terms and in our own context — or, as Woodson says, with a focus on “the Negro in this country and in Africa” (emphasis added). From its conception, NHW is an invitation for the masses of Black people to engage in this kind of study and this kind of conception of Black life.
The (neo)liberal affront recasts the original intention behind focusing on the achievements of African Americans, instead focusing on the African sellouts, or those African people who work to support Empire and to support projects of domination against Afrikan peoples. While the (neo)liberal affront celebrates these people, the nia of BHM is not about the African sellouts. Among those honored near the inception of NHW were not the black slave drivers, whom We might equate with the African sellouts of our day. Among those who were honored were Nat Turner, John Brown, and others who “lay down his life for his friends.” Special attention was called to Daniel Drayton, L. W. Paine, Calvin Fairbanks, and Andrew Torrey, political prisoners incarcerated for aiding self-emancipated “fugitive[s] on the way to freedom.” The early focus on Afrikan freedom fighters, political prisoners, and others who worked to support Afrikan liberation reveals to us the purpose that drives our deep study of Black life: to imbibe the history and knowledge that supports our efforts toward liberation.
Within the framework of NHW, Woodson also resisted the tendency to make appeals to the dominant society. In “Celebration,” Woodson urges that there should be “no indulgence in undue eulogy of the Negro . . . The case of the Negro is well taken care of.” In other words, he reminds us that We aren’t here to convince anyone that Black people are worth something. In this sense, “Fuck BHM” draws a false equivalence between BHM and BLM. The statement “Black Lives Matter” from the outset was not only an affirmation to those who know the truth of the statement but whose faith was shaken by brazen killings; it was also from the outset an appeal to those who, historically, have never given much of a damn. BHM differs in this respect; on this matter Woodson is clear.
Of course, one man does not make a tradition. Woodson’s ideas alone do not constitute Black History Month’s essence. But Woodson does provide instruction on what BHM is, or what it’s supposed to be. And, perhaps even more importantly, his writings point us to a picture of Black organizing around the celebration. Woodson in 1927 paints a picture of a massive, nationwide, organized movement against miseducation and disinformation in schools and libraries. Black library workers led the charge in libraries by pressuring management to purchase Black texts, even effecting the importation of translated texts from Afrika. And, contrary to the exclusionary policies common at university campuses today, the celebrations and knowledge-transmissions of NHW were meant to be mass-focused, “open and free.” Tellingly, the first and foremost point of “Things To Be Done” in an early NHW pamphlet pictured above is to “Organize your community.”
There is a power to the organizing factor of Black History Month, a time when there is a massive, sustained, and intentional effort to celebrate and to ponder Black life. While colonial institutions promote whitewashed accounts of Black life during Black History Month, contorting Black life in the service of Empire, the activities of these progenitors of the tradition of Black History Month in the late 1920s provide us a model for combatting the very misinformation and censorship campaigns of which the (neo)liberal affront is a part.
In examining the origins of NHW, it becomes clear that the purpose of the tradition is to showcase and celebrate Black students’ and scholars’ acquired knowledge from year-round study, and to encourage the spread and further development of such study. NHW and by extension BHM was and is about the striving of Black people to live — to create life, to be life, to celebrate life and to mourn life under siege, because Black life becomes all of those things. And because Black life as a whole is rendered untenable under the current order, BHM is also about imagining and strategizing toward a different order. BHM is about the conscious effort to sit in those things and to share the fruits of a year-long or, really, a lifelong study of Black life. That’s what BHM is about: a calling of attention to all of Black life. That is its essence, its nia.
What’s in a Name? BHM or African Liberation Month
When i raised the issue of renaming February to be African Liberation Month, one brother’s response exemplified its strategic flaw: “Isn’t that in May?” Even without a concerted effort toward building the structure of an entire Afrikan Liberation Month in May, the foundation is there. That foundation lies in the tradition of Afrikan Liberation Day. Perhaps building on that existing foundation would be strategically sound.
While the “Fuck BHM” article purports to propose a February African Liberation Month (ALM) as a “different framework,” it sorely lacks discussion of what a February ALM would be in a positive sense (i.e., well-defined with respect to itself, rather than in contrast to something else). A generous reader might credibly assume that the proposed February ALM would, at the very least, remedy the four main points of critique levied against BHM in the article. A Hood Communist Instagram post calling for BHM/“ALM” submissions does more to positively define a February ALM as a focal point for “analyzing the liberation struggle of our people on a global scale.”
The question remains whether the institution of a February ALM would be a pareto improvement over the continuation of the BHM tradition. By now, We have begun to embark on a discourse on BHM’s nia as a liberating intellectual project, a focal point for sharing the fruits of a year-long/lifelong study of Black life across perceived bounds of space and time, and an opportunity for mass-focused community organizing. Given the fact that the modern European political project of imperial domination and subjugation of Afrikan peoples requires an attendant intellectual project for relegating Afrikan history and Deep Thought to the realm of an imposed nonexistence, thereby justifying the complete abnegation of Afrikan personhood through the socioeconomic practice of chattel slavery, a concerted, organized effort to study and promote the study of Afrikan history in a holistic manner — not just within the confines of the disaster (maafa) that We find ourselves in, that amounts to but a moment in our total history and future existence — is still sorely needed. At the same time, our concerted study of our history must reinforce our present, material struggle for global Afrikan liberation. Reserving a dedicated time of year for sharing the fruits of our holistic study in a mass-focused manner still holds a powerful potential for shaping the imaginations and freedom dreams of Afrikan peoples toward liberation.
Is this sort of holistic treatment of Afrikan history something that would truly be embedded in a February ALM, the way it is embedded in the nia of BHM? Or does the name ALM lend itself to a different, though of course related, purpose?
For the time being, BHM remains the name recognized both by the carriers of the fugitive intellectual tradition of NHW, those who remain committed to waging the war for Afrikan liberation on both the intellectual and material fronts, and by the masses of Afrikan people in this land presently but not forever known as the united states of amerikkka. What tactical sense is there in the renaming of February as African Liberation Month by a principled yet non-representative number of Afrikan people? How does this renaming speak to the masses and achieve the original objectives of NHW in a way that leaning in to BHM’s nia does not? A humble and honest report-back from those organizing real-life February ALM activities for the past several years would be valuable data toward answering these questions.
With all the aforementioned points still standing, the idea of dedicating a month to an analysis of the global movement for Afrikan liberation remains a tantalizingly powerful possibility. i would like to humbly advance the notion of recognizing May as Afrikan Liberation Month. Such a practice would expand on the existing tradition of Afrikan Liberation Day (ALD) on May 25th, without displacing the tradition of BHM as a necessary front for intellectual warfare. Examining the calendar for important dates to the New Afrikan people reveals a jumping off point for the expansion of the ALD tradition. Malcom X’s birthday of May 19th could be the start of an Afrikan Liberation Week, spanning the week from Baba Malcolm’s birthday on the 19th to ALD on the 25th. The inauguration of Afrikan Liberation Week could be an opportunity for those who currently organize annual ALD commemorations to expand activities in their communities toward the aims envisioned by those who propose ALM, and further lay the foundation for the month-long organizing of an Afrikan Liberation Month in May.
Conclusion
There is power in the fact that millions of Afrikan people in this country recognize and are galvanized by the words “Black History Month.” This is reason enough for us to engage in and defend a liberatory tradition. Underneath the loudness and brightness of the (neo)liberal affront on the tradition of Black History Month, there are still those of Us who attend to the tradition and its nia without fanfare. This article is an invitation to join in the liberatory tradition of deep study that is Black History Month, and a calling of attention to an opportunity to expand an existing tradition in the form of May’s Afrikan Liberation Month.
The “Fuck BHM” article from four years ago rightly critiques the (neo)liberal affront, or co-option, of BHM. Its central flaw, however, is that it treats the (neo)liberal affront on BHM as its essence. The white historiography that characterizes this affront, with its recasting of the human experience within patriarchal, imperialist terms and its conditional, discretized inclusion of Black folk in the amerikkkan national narrative, runs counter to any serious Black study.
The perpetrators of the (neo)liberal affront on BHM are not the authorities on BHM’s tradition. The State Department, DoD, Marvel and Disney, Apple and Target are not the authorities. The Black people who practice BHM, especially those who remain true to its original tenets of self-determining historiography, are the authorities. BHM, despite the concerted effort toward co-option, continues to be a focal point for Sankofa, an annual rhythmic returning home to ourselves, to the experiences and Deep Thought of our ancestors. Regardless of the (neo)liberal affront, BHM and other Afrikan traditions under similar attack (e.g., Juneteenth) are elements of a Black Radical Tradition. They are ours as long as We say they are, and as long as We stay true to them. What is the meaning of the traditions of our ancestors? Do We concede defeat and abandon them the moment they begin to be co-opted by our oppressors? Or, do We defend these traditions while uplifting the true practices? This is why i say: Restore the nia of Black History Month, and celebrate BHM.
* Jacob Carruthers and the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations refer to this style of white historiography as the “modern Western revision” of Augustine’s philosophy of history, in which “time [is] a series of ascending stages leading to the divine millennium.” Secularized by Enlightenment philosophers, the ascendancy of Germanic peoples becomes the end of time, with its natural capstone being the arrival of amerikkka’s global empire. Accepting this philosophy of history, the only hope for the rescue of Afrikan humanity becomes the recasting of Black life in terms of its contributions to the coming of amerikkka. This historiographical style predominates the (neo)liberal affront on BHM. See Carruthers, “An African Historiography for the 21st Century,” in The Preliminary Challenge, ed. Carruthers and Harris, p. 52
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