After
many years spent in public school classrooms teaching communication (translate that word into
reading and writing) in not one but 2 languages and much of the last decade
decompressing and regaining a sense of myself. I am finally giving myself
permission to speak and to speak candidly. I
am pissed off! That’s right, you read
it correctly. no sugar coating, no polite speak, no editorial correcting the
angry black woman’s language. I told you how
I feel and now, I will tell you why
I feel that way!
Being born
female in this country or in any other supposedly male dominated society is a
negative factor. Being born black and female is a double whammy. Strangely enough because my mother died shortly
after my second birthday, the significant adults in my life were my
grandmother, a four foot eleven, born red-headed, dynamo along with my father,
my grandfather, and my mother’s four brothers. (Told you society, as well as my
life, was male dominated!) Since my
family were always my family, I had no clue just how different and egalitarian
they were until I reached early adulthood and was confronted with “the world.”
As a liberal arts major (languages not history)
I have a tendency to acquire books
. Yes, I have a personal library of
books on black literature and black history (which I described to the husband
of a college friend ….”The day I leave this earth permanently….my
children/grandchildren will be downstairs splitting up my library!”). They might as well since I won’t need the
books any more! All kidding aside…the
books I have acquired or reacquired after dealing with two devastating house
fires….have value to me because no matter how “integrated” our schools
have/have not become…the literary and social history of folk of African descent
in the USA has been lost, strayed, stolen and purloined. We as a people have been carefully edited
out. Of course years ago…..I understood
and accepted the responsibility of educating my children about who we were and
the validity of our history.
Anyone who
thinks ”edited” out history is accurate has a lesson to learn from a black
academic, the holder of a Ph.D. from a major university and a man who teaches
the history of black folk at a famous university in the South. He made the mistake
of telling me there were no black folks
in Appalachia! I remember sarcastically asking him if I had turned
“white.” Then I realized he genuinely
believed what he said. It was school time…for him. The history of black folks in Appalachia is
as diverse as we are, as diverse as are our origins. Immediately I thought
about a poet also born in my birth state of Kentucky, Countee (Porter) Cullen who was born in Louisville in 1903. I thought about Whitney Young, an early voice
in the Civil Rights Movement as president of the National Urban League, born in
Lincoln Ridge, Ky. I remember thinking that this professor was a published
academic and he had no clue about the origin of many significant black
folk! Henry Louis Gates, well known and
published historian, a professor at Harvard University is a native West
Virginian. Carter G. Woodson, a fellow
Berea College alumnus, and the “father of black history” was a native Virginian. Booker T. Washington was born in Hales Ford, Va., a small town near
Roanoke. William C. Matney, my cousin and a national news correspondent for
both NBC and later ABC was born in Bluefield, W.Va. Muhammad Ali was born, went
to school and grew up in Kentucky. Without thinking, I rattled off names of
significant people of Appalachian origin. Perhaps I made the mistake of looking
for a depth of knowledge that was not required for history professorships? I
knew that the people I have named had Appalachian origins and I have never had
a black history class in my life! I thought about the poets – Nikki Giovanni,
Bell Hooks, Frank X. Walker whose birth places were all in Appalachia….Knoxville,
Tennessee. Hopkinsville, Ky., Danville, Ky. At that point….if the professor wanted to know of any more black
Appalachians…he would have to do his own research…I was through ! (Before anyone
starts complaining about the number of Kentuckians named….don’t forget that I
am a native born Kentuckian!)
My list is
not definitive, it was not meant to be. I have never shied away from my Appalachian origins nor
will I.
However, the next person who complains about my identification as a “hillbilly”
a.k.a. an Appalachian very well may find
themselves the recipient of either a snub or an old fashioned dressing down. Let me shut up before I start
with the profanity!
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