10 PRACTICAL REASONS TO ACKNOWLEDGE BLACK HISTORY MONTH
1. Historical Accuracy
American history cannot be told truthfully without Black history. Slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, labor movements, music, theology, and law are inseparable from it. Ignoring this produces a distorted national memory. Truth should matter. Truth. Should. Matter.
2. Educational Completeness
Standard curricula still leave major gaps. Black History Month functions as a corrective by highlighting people, events, and contributions that were excluded or minimized for generations.
3. Reduction of Ignorance-Based Conflict
Most cultural conflict is fueled by bad information. Historical literacy lowers caricatures, resentment, and reactionary thinking by replacing slogans with facts.
4. Honest Recognition of Contribution
Many Black achievements were ignored, erased, or credited to others. Acknowledgment is not favoritism; it is delayed accuracy.
5. National Coherence
Nations that tell the truth about themselves are stronger than those that suppress parts of their past. Shared honesty produces social stability, not division.
6. Lessons in Civic Progress
Black history provides concrete examples of how laws change, movements succeed or fail, and institutions reform over time. These lessons apply universally.
7. Clear Understanding of Present Conditions
History explains present realities without assigning personal guilt. Structural understanding replaces emotional accusation and defensive denial.
8. American Ideals Lived Out
Many of the nation’s stated ideals—liberty, equal protection, human dignity—were pressed into reality by Black Americans demanding the country live up to its own principles.
9. Minimal Cost, Maximum Benefit
Acknowledgment requires no policy changes, no political alignment, and no ideological conformity. Refusal communicates fear of history, not confidence in truth.
10. Consistency in Remembrance
Society already recognizes other heritage months and memorials. Selective resistance exposes inconsistency rather than principle.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHURCHES AND INDIVIDUALS
Every church and every Christian should at least acknowledge Black History Month for the same reason the church acknowledges church history, Reformation history, and missionary history: truth matters. This causes no spiritual harm and compromises no doctrine. It strengthens understanding of people, history, and the social world in which the church is called to bear faithful witness.
Acknowledgment improves relationships. Silence—especially selective silence—communicates indifference or hostility whether intended or not. The Gospel commands wisdom toward those outside the church and honesty among those inside it. Ignoring a significant portion of one’s neighbor’s history accomplishes neither.
A truthful view of American church history is impossible without reckoning with slavery, segregation, revival movements, Black congregations, Black pastors, and Black theologians. Partial history produces shallow preaching and weak discipleship. The church is not served by intentional amnesia.
When a church or preacher refuses even acknowledgment, the appropriate response is a simple question: why? And if the answer appeals to being “biblical,” then the request should be equally simple—produce a sound biblical reason. Chapter and verse. Scripture commands remembrance, truth-telling, justice, and love of neighbor. Any position that demands silence about history should be tested carefully, especially when that silence consistently falls on the same people.
The church of Jesus Christ is called to walk in the light. Light exposes nothing that truth should fear.
BDD
