Honoring the past, celebrating the present

This month, UTRGV joins the rest of the nation in the celebration of Black History Month with a series of events focusing on the achievements of African Americans.

“Any campus in the country, including ours, should celebrate what African Americans have done for not only U.S. history, but for a lot of the movements [like the] civil rights movements … that the Hispanic population benefit from,” said Manuel Medrano, a professor emeritus in the History Department.

Carter G. Woodson, an alumnus of the University of Chicago, traveled to Chicago in the summer of 1915 to participate in the national celebration of the 5oth anniversary of emancipation. Thousands of African Americans attended the event to see exhibits of “the progress their people had made since the destruction of slavery,” according to the website of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (asalh.org).

Woodson decided to form an organization to promote the scientific study of black life and history. He also urged some of his fraternity brothers at Omega Psi Phi at the U. of C. to take on the project. They created Negro History and Literature Week, which was later renamed Negro Achievement Week, the website states.

“We are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements,” he told students at the Hampton Institute in 1924.

In February 1926, Woodson issued a press release announcing Negro History Week. February was selected because two Americans who were born in that month played an important role in black history, Medrano said.

President Abraham Lincoln was born on Feb. 12 and Frederick Douglass on the 14th. Lincoln was the first president to propose emancipation of slaves. Douglass was a former slave who became an anti-slavery activist, author and speaker.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford officially recognized the expansion of Black History Week into Black History Month.

“This country is like a colcha, like a quilt of many racial groups, ethnic groups, religious groups and instead of looking at what they take from the country, I look at it in terms of what they give to the country,” Medrano said.

He said that for a long time U.S. history books have been exclusive about ethnic history.

“You have to find out about Mexican-American history, most of the time, in Mexican-American history courses, or African American history courses for African American history,” he said. “And, if it’s part of a national history repertoire, then we should include it in the national history that we celebrate across the country.”

For students interested in learning more about black history, Student Involvement planned several events.

Last Tuesday, Lecturer Jose M. Villarreal spoke about the Civil Rights Movement and the movie “Southside with You” was screened last Thursday.

“We really try to provide programming that will provide educational components to the students,” said Raul Leal, program coordinator for leadership and social change

On Feb. 21, the “Let’s Talk About it S’more: Cultural Chat” will take place at the Ballroom from 7 to 9 p.m. on the Edinburg campus. Local activist David Mitchell will perform music and a presentation of his admiration of African American culture.

On Feb. 23, the movie “Loving” will be screened from 7 to 10 p.m. in the Plains Capital El Gran Salón on the Brownsville campus and at the same time in the Plains Capital Student Union Theater on the Edinburg campus. The movie portrays the many obstacles faced by Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple, who were arrested for marrying.

For more information or special accommodations, please call the Student Involvement on the Brownsville campus at 882-5111 and on the Edinburg campus at 665-2660.