What I learned about African Americans

by Kahmeya Lewis

I was born during the height of the civil rights movement in 1964, I don’t remember much about it probably because as a small child you don’t understand the importance of many events. Both my parents were from the south and desired a better life so they decided to move north to Ohio. They lived with family members until they made enough money to get their own place. Their first house was in the ghetto, I don’t recall that neighborhood because I was only a baby at the time. My father worked two jobs and my mother worked two jobs also, they strive to give their children a better life and a nice neighborhood. Eventually they saved enough money to buy a house in the suburbs. It was basically an all white neighborhood, growing up there I found myself the only black kid in the group quite a bit.

In elementary I did learn about history but nothing about African Americans or the cultural history, it was more focused on George Washington, the revolutionary war fought for freedom from Britain, and learning all the presidents’ names. During that time I learned more from my mother, she loved to tell stories and talk about current events. She was the one that told me about the march on Washington in the 60’s, Emmet Till being killed because he whistled at a white woman, and about segregation of buses, trains, etc. She told a story about her brother who fought in the Korean War side by side with white soldiers and when the war was over my uncle riding the train to come home with his fellow soldiers and friends that once the train moved into the south train officials attempted to move all the black soldiers to the back cars. In junior high I learned more about global and white history and bit about Martin Luther King, but it was so brief I truly did not understand what it was all about. When I was young my parents bought some books, it was a set all about black history.

From those books I learned about the real discrimination African Americans endured, it showed a diagram of the plans to transport slaves on a slave ship, all lined up side by side laying down, it was the first I saw images of black people hanging from trees dead, and people being killed because they entered a University. I learned so much from those books they were called Ebony History of Black America, my parents bought the whole set, all I can say is they were amazing books with beautiful and sometimes shocking pictures. In high school the focus was again on white history and global history, there was a chapter on slavery and the civil rights movement of the 60’s that was about it. It wasn’t until I went to college in the 1985 I took a black studies class I learned in detail about African American history. I found this class interesting and it was a class I never skipped, it had my full attention. I learned less in school about African Americans; my parents are the ones who taught me the most. I don’t think my parents had this deep seeded need to make sure we understood our culture, but it seemed more about sharing information and experiences.