African American History IS American History
In honor of Black History tonight’s RAIN DEI moment will illustrate why representation matters, and Black History is important, relevant, and local . . . yes, even in Northbrook.
Crispus Attucks was a Free Man of Color and the first person killed in the American Revolutionary War. He died with four white Boston citizens when British soldiers fired into a crowd of hundreds who were protesting British Rule. In total, more than 5,000 Black soldiers fought in the Revolutionary War. Did you notice him in the Paul Revere drawing of the Boston Massacre, or that one of the soldiers in the famous painting of George Washington Crossing the Delaware is a Black man?
Among the 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors who fought in the Civil War were two Black men who enrolled from Northfield Township in the Illinois 29th United State Colored Troops (USCT). Charles Fritz entered service as a substitute for renowned naturalist Robert Kennicott of the Grove and Daniel York was with his unit in Texas on Juneteenth.
Monroe Nathan Work was the first in his immediate family born free. He attended the University of Chicago where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and in 1903 a master’s degree in sociology. A sociologist at Tuskegee Institute, he dedicated his life to studying and writing about the Black experience. His books are in use in College classrooms today. Monroe Work is also my distant cousin – his enslaved grandmother is my enslaver third great grandmother’s half-sister.
Marguerite Young Alexander and twenty-one other young Black women founded Delta Sigma Theta sorority at Howard University in 1913. The following year they took part in the Women’s Suffrage March in Washington, D.C. Upon her death in 1954, she was buried in what was at that time was the all-Black Sunset Memorial Cemetery on Shermer Road in Northbrook. It is no longer exclusively an all-Black cemetery.
Recently one my cousins who descends from people enslaved by my family told the audience at a Zoom presentation we were doing that she was 4 or 5 when she met her grandparents for the first time since the family lived in Spain while her father was in the Navy. She went on to say, “I was surprised to learn they were Black . . . because all my little children’s books always had white grandparents.”
Black history and representation is important every day. It is important for all children who love to read, and for the scientists, poets, inventors, mathematicians, sociologists, writers, everyday people, and the workforce. Maya Angelou said it best when she said,
“Won’t it be wonderful when Black history and Native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.”
Please search the internet for “Contributions of Black people to the United States” . . . what you learn for the first time may surprise you.
For some spectacular images re: the words above, make sure to click on the links below:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Boston-Massacre
http://www.seacoastnh.com/history/history-matters/black-man-with-washington-crossing-the-delaware/
https://amp.courierpostonline.com/amp/6646926001
Pennsylvania recruitment broadside:https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UIL0029RI
Monroe Nathan Work: https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/work-monroe-nathan
Marguerite Young Alexander: https://www.deltasigmatheta.org/about-delta/#Timeline