This Black Historical past Month, let’s transfer from data to transformation. This Black Historical past Month, I invite you to attempt a easy however illuminating train.
Take 10 minutes. Write down — on paper or in your cellphone — the books, motion pictures, TV reveals, songs, speeches, academics, or moments which have most formed how you concentrate on race, faith, Black historical past, politics, and identification. Don’t overthink it. Simply write.
Then ask your self a more durable set of questions: What does this checklist say about me? What views dominate? The place did my assumptions come from?
Most summaries of Black historical past comply with a chronological arc —slavery, segregation, civil rights, with protest and oppression as the first through-line. That story issues. However it isn’t the one option to perceive the Black mental custom, neither is it at all times probably the most revealing.
Another method is thematic. It asks: what issues maintain resurfacing throughout generations — and why do severe Black thinkers, throughout ideology, maintain returning to them?
Black historical past is an extended custom of problem-solving. Training, religion, financial independence, justice, household, tradition, political energy, and institutional design seem many times — debated fiercely, however not often deserted. Disagreement just isn’t a weak spot; it’s proof of sustained mental funding.
What binds the Black mental custom just isn’t settlement on options, however a shared refusal to desert the issues themselves.
24 Shared Themes Throughout Black Conservative, Reasonable, and Liberal Thought
(C = Conservative · M = Reasonable · L = Liberal)
1. Slavery & the Foundations of Race in America
David Walker L (“Attraction”); John W. Blassingame M (“The Slave Group”); Ira Berlin M (“Many 1000’s Gone”); Thomas Sowell C (“Black Rednecks and White Liberals”).
2. Training because the Basis of Black Development
Booker T. Washington C (“Up from Slavery”); Carter G. Woodson L (“The Mis-Training of the Negro”); James D. Anderson M (“The Training of Blacks within the South”).
3. Training & Achievement Gaps
Paul E. Peterson M (“Selecting Colleges”); Jonathan Kozol L (“Savage Inequalities”); Christopher Jencks M & Meredith Phillips M (“The Black–White Check Rating Hole”).
4. Financial Empowerment & Self-Sufficiency
A. Philip Randolph L (“Brotherhood of Sleeping Automotive Porters”); Martin Luther King Jr. M (“The place Do We Go from Right here”).
5. Economics, Labor & Class
William Julius Wilson M (“When Work Disappears”); Richard Rothstein L (“The Colour of Regulation”); Manning Marable M/L (“Race, Class, and Energy”).
6. Civil Rights & Equal Safety Below the Regulation
Frederick Douglass M (“Narrative”); Charles Hamilton Houston M (authorized technique dismantling “separate however equal”); E. Franklin Frazier M (“Black Bourgeoisie”).
7. Religion and Black Homes of Worship
Howard Thurman M (“Jesus and the Disinherited”); Henry Louis Gates Jr. M (“The Black Church”); James H. Cone L (“A Black Theology of Liberation”).
8. Psychological Affect of Racism
Booker T. Washington C (“Character Constructing”); Frantz Fanon L (“Black Pores and skin, White Masks”).
9. Enduring Legacy of Slavery and Segregation
Solomon Northup M (“12 Years a Slave”); W.E.B. Du Bois L/M (“The Souls of Black Folks”); Thomas Sowell C (“Discrimination and Disparities”).
10. Sturdy Households and Group Assist
Herbert Gutman M (“The Black Household in Slavery and Freedom”); Cornel West L (“Race Issues”).
11. Energy of Black Cultural Expression
Nina Simone L; Spike Lee L; Cheikh Anta Diop M (“The Cultural Unity of Black Africa”).
12. Proper to Protest and Political Engagement
Martin Luther King Jr. M (“Stride Towards Freedom”); Tupac Shakur L (“Modifications”).
13. Crime, Violence, and Group Security
Khalil Gibran Muhammad M/L (“The Condemnation of Blackness”); James Forman Jr. M (“Locking Up Our Personal”); Bryan Stevenson L (“Simply Mercy”).
14. Holding Political Events Accountable
Carol M. Swain M/C (“Black Faces, Black Pursuits”); Jesse Jackson M/L (DNC speeches).
15. Position of HBCUs in Black Development
Traditionally Black Faculties and Universities C/M/L (establishments).
16. Monetary Literacy and Wealth-Constructing
Thomas Sowell C (“Primary Economics”); Mehrsa Baradaran L (“The Colour of Cash”).
17. Difficult Exploitative Media and Stereotypes
John McWhorter M/C (“Shedding the Race”); Michelle Alexander L (“The New Jim Crow”).
18. Exhausting Work, Perseverance, and Duty
Booker T. Washington C (“Character Constructing”); Marian Wright Edelman M/L (“The Measure of Our Success”).
19. Reforming the Prison Justice System
Bryan Stevenson L (“Simply Mercy”); up to date reform debates C/M/L.
20. Central Position of Black Ladies in Management
Sojourner Fact M (“Ain’t I a Lady?”); Shirley Chisholm L; Ella Baker L.
21. Proper to Self-Protection
Malcolm X L; constitutional self-defense traditions C.
22. Correct and Sincere Black Historical past Training
Carter G. Woodson L; W.E.B. Du Bois L/M; Nikole Hannah-Jones L (“1619 Undertaking”).
23. Hope and Resilience as Core Black Values
Barack Obama M (“A Extra Excellent Union”); Amanda Gorman L (“The Hill We Climb”).
24. Institutional Technique and the Design of Justice
Charles Hamilton Houston M (legislation as social engineering); Pauli Murray M (constitutional creativeness); A. Philip Randolph L (labor leverage); Ella Baker L (decentralized management); Mary McLeod Bethune M (institutional diplomacy).
The Black mental custom just isn’t monolithic — however it’s deeply interconnected. That could be crucial lesson of all this Black Historical past Month. What this framework reveals is the presence of shared ethical concern throughout ideology. The arguments are about how, not what.
Ed Gaskin is Govt Director of Better Grove Corridor Foremost Streets and founding father of Sunday Celebrations
