This Black History Month

By Milly Thangjam *

With the US having its first black president, I'm sure that on this Black History month, many people will remember the many influential blacks, past and present. Most notably, many will remember Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil rights Movement of the 1960s because without him and the movement, Obama would never have become president today. Or some might remember Abraham Lincoln as the champion for the anti-slavery cause. I have all the admiration and respect for Lincoln and King, but it's sad that the tens of thousands of slaves and non-slaves who resisted against slavery and fought for freedom right from the days of the Middle Passage to the antebellum days are mostly forgotten. It is sad that the thousands of unknown men and women who heralded the Abolition leading up to the Civil Rights Movement are forgotten by the general populace. It's not like Lincoln alone gave freedom to the slaves without any initiative from those enslaved,it's not like Martin Luther King started the Civil Rights Movement and went on it alone. The resistances and activism were already there before their times, Lincoln and King just picked up from what was already present. If anyone asks a kid today who they think are the most influential blacks who helped shape the history of African Americans, many will say Oprah Winfrey, Mohammad Ali, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice; on the brighter side, some might mention Harriet Tubman, Maya Angelou, or Alice Walker just because she wrote The Color Purple, or Rosa Parks because of her refusal to give up a bus seat at Montgomery during the days of Jim Crowe's laws. But what happened to Sojourner Truth who in spite of not being able to read or write was one of the most vocal and effective public speakers against slavery in the mid 1800s? How about Frederick Douglas and Harriet Jacobs, who risked their freedom and lives by publishing the stories of their experiences as slaves before the Abolition? How about the hundreds of slaves and non-slaves who risked everything by being a part of the Underground Railroad? How about the thousands of unknown faces and names born and bred in slavery who sowed the early seeds of resistance?

Apart from the few names mentioned in history books, the thousands of those who worked towards the Abolition, Reconstruction, and even in the Civil Rights movement are unrecorded and forgotten. But these men and women with their untold stories were the greater heroes---the slave mother who hid her kids in dungeons for months, even years so that they would not be sold away to another plantation, the free fathers, grandmothers, brothers and sisters who worked from sunup to sundown to save money to buy their relatives still in slavery, and the many free black women who gave up love and marriage to set up school rooms for slave children and adults which was then still against the law. They are the unsung heroes, but they never asked for praise or recognition. They did what they had to do because they believed in it, and that was reward in itself.

The history of African Americans is to me a symbol of courage and of hope. I'm not a history student, or a sociology or political science student or a student of anything that has remotely anything to do with it, initially I was just curious about them as I felt I hardly knew anything about African American history. Personally, their history is like a revelation because their story is one of the most profound stories of any people in the world. During the holocaust, some of the Jews resisted, but many went into the slaughter-house like it was destined for them. Not African Americans. Their resistance was one of the most uniformly united ones seen on the face of the earth. Every one of them longed for freedom, even those free were not really free because they still had their children, parents, siblings still in slavery. But what is admirable is that in spite of being enslaved with no time of their own, they never gave up their resistance. Maybe, that is what draws me to their history.

When I think back about life in Manipur, I can see parallels to theirs. Okay, we are not enslaved there, but I never knew what I was back then. I was supposed to be a citizen of the country I was born in, but I never felt like one, nor did I feel I was treated like one. I just felt I did not have the fundamental rights that I was supposed to have. For instance, I couldn't travel freely; by choice, I have always preferred buses to planes, but I did not like to be asked to come out from the bus every time I entered Manipur so that the security personnel could make sure I was okay to enter. Still to this day, I think about it. I couldn't do anything then, and I still can't do anything about it now, but in my heart of hearts, I have always known it was wrong. In one particular incident about fifteen or so years ago, I saw innocent men, women, and children (read any passer-by) being randomly shot at by "peace keeping forces". I say "peace-keeping" because to this day, I still don't know what peace they were/are keeping. Every month, I hear of news of children killed, of women raped in the name of peace-keeping, and we still cannot do anything about it. Some of us don't care because they are not our family, we just read about it as an everyday occurrence and forget about it to live our so called busy lives. Some of us think "It's not Imphal", like the only place in Manipur that counts is Imphal. And saddest of all, I have seen disparaging comments about anti-occupation activists like the women who protested naked in order to highlight the rape of women as a form of judicial punishment. All I can think is that they were doing what they believed in, they were not giving in, and that takes a lot of courage that I or many of us don't have. Their spirit of not giving in, and not surrendering in to something they don't believe in is laudable.

One of the key foundations for social change throughout history has been resistance. But sadly, resistance has been given incorrect labels throughout history at the same time with names like terrorists and anti-nationals. If George Washington were alive today, would he be called a freedom fighter or a terrorist?

Manipur has a lot to learn from the history of African Americans. Every single African American resisted, from their journey from West Africa till the Abolition, from the Reconstruction till the passing of the 14th and the 15th Amendments, from the days of the Black Codes till the Civil Rights years and beyond. Theirs was the spirit of never giving in to something they didn't believe in, theirs was the spirit of never giving up what they believed in –-the right to be free.