When I was asked to pen a column regarding African-American History Month, I decided to formulate a standard defense of the yearly celebration. However, as I sat down to begin writing, the process was interrupted by an early-morning phone call. The caller notified me that Coretta Scott King, the beloved wife of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had just passed. Hence, I decided to scrap the initial column in favor of one aimed at honoring Coretta Scott King’s works. I pray that it proves worthy.
Mrs. King’s passing reminds us that the contributions of African-American women are often unintentionally overshadowed or willfully curtailed by the very men who proclaim to love, support, and fight in their name. Consequently, the critical role of African-American women within both the civil rights and black power movements has been largely ignored. The utmost danger of such occurrences of historical erasure is that many of the most damaging issues affecting African-American women go unexamined. There is a tendency to believe that if the issues surrounding African-American men are solved, African-American women will be automatically saved. Unfortunately, the two issues are largely unrelated, leaving one to conclude that African-American women must have their own movement to address matters such as: AIDS, teenage-pregnancy, high dropout rates (high school and college), etc.
It is with the intention of honoring the historical and contemporary contributions of Coretta Scott King, Ella Baker, Constance Baker Motley, Septima Clark, Assata Shakur, Alexis Herman, Kathleen Cleaver, Alice Walker, and Dorothy Height that I offer this brazen advice to my African-American female students. The greatest honor you can give those who have paved the way for your current opportunities is to earn a quality education. So during this African-American History Month, honor those who have gone before you by not wasting opportunities provided via sweat, tears, and lives. There is no greater honor to those heroines who came before you than to commit to the “good fight” that they fought. Consider the passing of Coretta Scott King as a ‘call to arms.’ However, before you begin your service, there are certain tools/weapons/knowledge that you must have prior to entering the battlefield. Consider the legacies of women such as Coretta Scott King your roadmap. Equip yourself with a quality education, a politicized mind, an agape love for future generations that emboldens you to speak truth to power, while possessing grace and class. Embrace this call to join the struggle for African-American/human rights and remember that the initial step of this great journey begins at Prairie View A&M University in the classroom where professors will arm you with your armor, shields, swords, etc. Trust me, every good soldier finds them useful.