Instead, our children too often do, on their own, what Governor Wallace did in 1963.

Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils

Last year about this time, I suggested you read The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson, but something tells me you didn’t, and something tells me you had a “reason.”

Some people, perhaps you included, would give an excuse. Perhaps you “didn’t have the time,” or you “don’t have the time,” or even, you “forgot.” Those are not excuses; excuses are legitimate reasons, and, as far as I’m concerned, none of those fit as “legitimate reasons.” They’re “cop-outs,” those things you wrap up in sympathetic tissue and lob at folks, hoping they’ll mistake them for truth, kinda like “alternative facts.”

The real reason is wrapped up in tinted cellophane: You. Just. Didn’t. You didn’t plan to. It’s that simple. Why read when we can just swallow what other folks think or believe by pressing a button or swiping a screen? Besides, reading is work, which, translated, means boring!

Last week, Jackie headed my column with a quote from Tony Burroughs, internationally known genealogist, author and lecturer, featured at the Hammond Library earlier this month: “We would be proud of our history if we knew it.” Unfortunately, we don’t, and so we aren’t.

Too many of us are disconnected from our roots, and you know what happens to any living thing when severed from its root. Without the source of nourishment, it withers and dies.

What, for instance, do you know about our education history? What’s the significance of “Brown vs. Board of Education” (1954)? Who was George Wallace, and what is his legacy? What does “separate but equal” mean historically?

Closer to home, what do you know about the history of Gary schools and its significance? What and with whom have you shared this history? What high school was built purely for Blacks? Why? Has this history been shared freely?

It seems that the struggles of the past are shaken off. “We cannot live in the past.” My contention is that the past is crucial to how we live and appreciate the present. We dare not shake it off! We should celebrate it, honoring the efforts of people with courage and discipline, who made sacrifices for themselves and others.

Too often, we take for granted what came at great peril. We don’t consider what it was like to push aside these brambles for another generation… and another generation… Few of us have been denied the chance to attend school or to read.

Instead, our children too often do, on their own, what Governor Wallace did in 1963. Parents don’t walk up to schools, fingers clutching the tiny trembling fingers of sons and daughters as they file through a tunnel of hate-filled, foul-mouthed, angry people. Too often, they themselves are the foul-mouthed, angry people, storming into schools to stand between their children and learning, their grievance about “the same old bull” rather than out-dated textbooks.

I entreat you, whether parent, teacher, or neighbor, make it your business to open up the past to a child, or another younger person. Share what you know. Encourage learning. Help another to appreciate what is possible and good because of the struggles of those before.

Discovering your genealogy is all the rage right now, but there’s a lot of beneficial history you can glean without DNA… and it just might be a lot more valuable!

Story Posted:02/24/2017