By Ken Jones, Contributor 
Jones
IT WAS Dr. Carter Woodson, the American, who conceived and concretised the idea of celebrating Black History at a special time each year. But a Jamaican, Marcus Garvey, had long before proposed that it was necessary for people of African descent to know themselves, recognise their heritage, acknowledge the reasons for the condition of their race and formulate ways and means to be fortified for the challenges confronting them.
Woodson, a child of former slaves, spent his boyhood working in the coal mines of Kentucky. At the age of 20 he enrolled in high school and because he had always studied hard on his own, was able to graduate within two years. After that he went to Harvard and emerged with a Ph.D. degree.
Traditionally, most black graduates, satisfied with their own success, would concentrate on building personal comfort and security. However, Woodson was concerned that the history books he was obliged to study, had very little about Africa and Africans; and that where mention was made it merely reflected the inferior status assigned to black people.
In 1915 Carter Woodson set up an association for the study of Negro Life and History. Later he founded the Journal of Negro History and then in 1926 initiated the celebration of Black History Week "...to bring national attention to the contributions of black people throughout American history".
Meantime, Garvey who had established the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914, was actively organising and urging downtrodden black people worldwide to rise up, realise their true worth and restore respect for Africans at home and abroad. Marcus Garvey was convinced that the only way that black people could realise their full potential would be to first recognise the glory of their heritage and then seek to emulate the remarkable achievements recorded by their ancestors before the intervention of slavery. After that, the race could proudly re-enter the mainstream of world affairs and contribute equally as those who had been free while Africans were enslaved for hundreds of years.
In a pamphlet published in Kingston in 1916, Garvey declared: "To study the history of the Negro is to go back into a primitive civilisation that teems with the brightest and best in art and the sciences. You who do not know anything of your ancestry will do well to read the works of Blyden, one of our historians and chroniclers, who has done so much to retrieve the lost prestige of the race, and to undo the selfishness of alien historians and their history, which has said so little and painted us so unfairly."
What Garvey said 85 years ago is still true today. There is need for people of African descent to learn whence they came and how they arrived at their present positions. Too many are still too anxious to set themselves apart, ethnically, from their struggling and straggling brothers and sisters; too anxious to claim the virtues of mongrelisation rather than the challenges of the heritage that their hair and skins so readily reveal. Too many find it so easy to regurgitate the diet of falsified history served up in our education system; and in so doing they diminish themselves in the eyes of others who are proud to proclaim their race and nationality.
I support the celebration of Black History Month and I will accept the statement that Jamaica is a "black country", so long as the expression is motivated by pride in the achievements of our African forebears and not only because 95 per cent of us were born with obviously dark skins and kinky hair. This position is not antagonistic to any other race of people. In fact it is affirmation of equality. Yes, we are of mixed blood, but we needn't have mixed emotions about who we really are.
As Garvey said in 1938, we do not form a distinctive group and so "...your destiny must naturally link with the people from whom you have sprung." He might have added that there is no ethnic group, other than the African, to which the vast majority of Jamaicans might find ready access.
I support Black History Month because it provides opportunities to highlight the glories of the past, which is something lacking in our educational system. These recollections, as Garvey said, are what we need "...to inspire us with courage to create a worthy future." And again, he might have added, that the pride and self-reliance we need in order to build Jamaica, using the abundant God-given resources, which we neglect or abuse while knocking outside the doors of Britons and Americans.
This type of conduct, developed through ignorance of our potential, is what led Garvey to say: "Don't seek for acceptance at the expense of your self-respect. Why hammer at the gates where you are not wanted? Build your own mansions, enterprises, nations and governments. Build them so powerfully that the world will... acknowledge them and take them seriously."
Ken Jones is compiler/editor of the book 'Marcus Garvey Said', which has been endorsed and supported by UNESCO for use in Jamaica's education system.
