By Rev. Dr. Horace F. Whittaker, Jr.

"When servants are educated at all, they are educated to serve, but never to share power. This is the basic dilemma in Black education. Black people were not brought to this country to be given education, citizenship or democracy—they were brought here to serve, labor and obey."

—John Henrik Clarke, 1973

Black Resistance is the theme for this year's celebration of Black History in the U.S., formulated annually by the Association for the Study of African American Life & History (ASLAH). Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded both the organization and celebration. I participated in Black history week celebrations as a child in this state. Years later, as a highly qualified public school educator, I wrote and directed plays about the African origin of humanity, their enslavement, and their courage in living through racial and gender oppression. I taught and directed public school choirs that sang spirituals and songs from the civil rights protests during Black History Month and throughout the year as appropriate. I was taught and taught about our ancestors' merciless journey during the Transatlantic slave trade, a three-months long trip called "the middle passage" across the Atlantic Ocean with little food and having to endure the stench of feces and urine only to be rewarded for surviving this inhumanity by being placed upon an auction block and sold into slavery, for life, as was done here in Montgomery, Alabama on Commerce Street. African Americans recall and retell the truths of living and loving ourselves through enslavement and legalized segregation in the nation and particularly, in the south. That Montgomery, Alabama, could be perceived as both the "cradle of the confederacy" and "the birthplace of the civil rights movement" can be instructive within the current ecological context.

As the so-called "cradle of the confederacy," some Montgomerians might celebrate the historical fact that on February 4, 1861, "representatives from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana met in Montgomery, Alabama, with representatives from Texas arriving later" to develop the Confederate States of America. Their motto was Deo vindice, "Under God, Our Vindicator." Alexander Stephens, the confederate vice president, gave a speech called the "Cornerstone Speech," which laid out their ideological beliefs.

"Our new government['s] ...foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth”.

This was not truth grounded in science but rather a falsehood created by White males of European ancestry and Arab philosophers who promoted the idea of white superiority and Black inferiority, which consequently, became a culturally embedded narrative, though untrue, within these societies from the Greco-Roman period beginning approximately in 322 BCE to the present. Mills (2015), citing Goldenburg (2003), asserts that characterizations of skin color within religious writing "is what shapes negative portrayals of Blacks" during the pagan Greco-Roman period and afterward in the Christian world. In short, Black has been linked to the demonic and death, and White to light and "godliness." 

The civil war ensued over the lie of White superiority used to justify enslaving Black human beings sold and traded as products and whose labor not only generated the wealth of the secessionist states, but the U.S. economy as well. Historical facts tell us that slave-holding states lost the civil war, and their attempt to create a sovereign republic went unrecognized. On May 13, 1865, the Confederate States of America fell in defeat. 

One of the most outstanding Americans of our day, Attorney Byron Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative and builder of the greatest testaments to human history in the U.S., The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice here in Montgomery AL., suggests that though the confederate supremacists lost the war of physical weaponry, they won the war of words. 

A prime example of words as weapons that cause harm would be the falsehood and culturally embedded narrative of Black inferiority and White superiority being branded upon American culture such that ideas which reinforce Blacks are bad and Whites are good are unconsciously repeated as common social knowledge, even though science, according to phase 1 of the Human Genome Project, demonstrated that humans are one people. There is more difference between Whites than between Blacks and Whites. 

The 1901 Alabama Constitutional Convention clarified what many, if not most, White European Americans thought about the reconstituting of the state of Alabama after the civil war and the end of Reconstruction. Elected president of the convention John B. Knox of Calhoun, stated “And what is it that, we do want to do? Why, it is, within the limits imposed by the Federal Constitution, to establish white supremacy in this State”. Knox went on to later say, “But if we would have white supremacy we must establish it by law”.

Content on the Equal Justice Initiative website states the 1901 constitution "prohibited interracial marriage and mandated separate schools for Black and White children. The state constitutional convention's primary purpose was to disenfranchise Black voters legally". Voter suppression tactics like redistricting and gerrymandering then, as now, were always meant to support wealthy Whites' control of the levers of power and stop Black advancement. Black codes, jim crow laws, and convict leasing became legal and defacto means of establishing in the state of Alabama racism and White supremacy under the law, directing the movement of Black people into segregated housing, training schools, and jobs where we were only to serve the interests of the supremacists. 

Yet, despite this inhumane and oppressive treatment, Black Montgomerians formed families and communities, created music and art, built places of worship, and loved and admonished one other through an unending faith that their children would one day experience a freedom they and their ancestors had only experienced in the motherland of humanity, Alkebulan or in English Africa. Not only did my disinherited ancestors embody an unquenchable faith but the courageousness bequeathed by our African foremothers through all humanity to resist oppression. 

Montgomery is also viewed as the birthplace of the modern civil rights movement. Persistent civil disobedience and protests against de jure and defacto discrimination and segregation of Blacks throughout the mid-1900s and the kidnapping and murder of Emmitt Till culminated on December 5, 1955, with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Begun by the leadership of the Women's Political Council's Jo Ann Robinson, a former Pullman porter and local N.A.A.C.P. president E. D. Nixon, N.A.A.C.P. activist Rosa Parks, the Prophet Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a powerful coalition of poor and working-class Black citizens, formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to boycott the segregated busing system in protest against their unequal treatment under the law simply because they were Black. Blacks' non-violent economic boycott ended segregated busing in Montgomery and, coupled with lawsuits brought on their behalf across this country, directly led to laws and policies that created broader freedoms for Blacks and everyone else. Since 1955, movements for greater human freedoms, to some extent, from indigenous peoples, farm workers, feminists, and LGBTQ+ here and across the globe, benefitted from the courageous struggle by the Black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama.

But, our struggles for freedom and justice due immeasurably to Black resistance to White supremacy, which subsequently birthed the national progress we've made towards a more democratic society, has been under attack since the mid-1980s by republican conservative organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), The Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, as well as, White supremacist renewed calls for states' rights, continued voter suppression tactics and now since the police murder of George Floyd cries for banning The 1619 project, Critical race theory (CRT), books, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training, SCOTUS rulings undermining a woman's right to choose, lies of stolen elections, White supremacist mass murders of Hispanics and Jews, and republican supermajority states cementing White control of people and communities of color. All this amplified by FOX news and fueled, as sociological scholarship suggests, by the fears of many Whites no longer being the numerical majority in the nation, have, in total, all but reversed the hard-won progress of previous movements. Furthermore, given this nation's propensity for not holding White supremacists accountable for treasonous acts—not one person was convicted of treason after the civil war—poses severe threats to the

few semblances that remain of equality under the law. And if that were not enough, now Black high school students in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, are being denied the right to celebrate their history that involved the historical facts of enslavement and the ongoing civil rights movement. 

The Associated Press reported, "more than 200 students walked out of class at" Hillcrest high school in Tuscaloosa "after they say school leaders told them to omit certain relevant events from an upcoming student-led Black History Month program." Kyle Whitmire reported in an A.P. opinion piece that Gov. Kay Ivey "signed a bill prohibiting majority Black cities from removing Confederate monuments from their parks and public squares" after having stated during her 2018 campaign, "We can't change or erase our history, but here in Alabama, we know something Washington doesn't. To get where we're going means understanding where we've been." The problem is that Gov. Ivey doesn't see European Americans and African Americans coming from different places and journeys. Those remarks spoke to her constituents in the state who love and long for the return of the "ole' South" based on the insane belief in White supremacy as delivered in Stephens's Cornerstone speech, the revisionist myth of the "lost cause" promulgated by United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) and the codification by the 1901 constitution to legally restore Alabama to White supremacy.

Moreover, according to Zach Hester, "Robert E. Lee Day is just one of the three Confederate-related state holidays in Alabama. The state also observes Confederate Memorial Day in April and Confederate President Jefferson Davis's birthday in June". The hypocrisy is palpable.

On the other hand, Hillcrest Highschool Senior Jamiyah Brown and Jada Holt of Tuscaloosa, AL. echoed Gov. Ivey's appeal, though their audience is not today's segregationists and White supremacists but rather all freedom-loving people who embody the legacy of Montgomery as the "birthplace of the civil rights movement." The Associated Press reported Ms. Brown stated, "Without our history, we are nothing. Without teaching our youth where we come from, how can we move forward?" the article further showed Ms. Holt critically queried, "Why am I being censored about my culture, something that is rooted in me? Why can't I talk about it? History is history, and it's already been made, and it can't be erased,". These young Black women's culturally and intellectually astute remarks demonstrate aspects of culturally relevant student learning and critical analysis. Their questions also draw attention to our lived experiences honored in this year's Black History Month Theme: Black Resistance. Black resistance, civil disobedience, and human rights movements are only necessary responses because of our ongoing inequitable treatment by institutions like schools, and structures, such as, state-authored laws and policies. This is precisely what systemic racism looks like. We are tired of constantly being told these institutions and systems are free of racial bias because, as intelligent people, descendants of ancient Kemet, reared within a White supremacist ecological context, we know this is untrue due to our lived experiences with racialization and the double standards we encounter daily. To paraphrase James Baldwin, "[We] can't believe what you say because we see [and feel] what you do."  

For instance, Black Montgomerians and our White Euro-American allies must also live with the painful knowledge that the racist White power structure doesn't have the decency to allow the national holiday honoring the prophet Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to be celebrated without harking to voices of nullification and interposition but instead allow our commemoration to be desecrated by supremacist sympathizers' need to honor confederate general Robert E. Lee yes, on the same day, representing those that fought against freedom and justice for Black people and the establishment of racism White supremacy in this state, not to mention Governor Ivey's ignoble inauguration on King's Day, as well.

These actions by so-called leaders of this state also disrespect people from all walks of life, faiths, and ethnicities whose service and sacrifices honored our hallowed streets as "the birthplace of the civil rights movement," including great Montgomerians like Claudette Colvin, Rev. Robert Sylvester Graetz Jr., and Juliette Morgan to name a few and activists in other states like Ann Braden and William Moore, those who came to the state, like Jim Letherer and others who fought, bled and died in Alabama including Sammy Young, Viola Liuzzo, army veteran Rev. Joseph Reeb and Johnathan Daniels, to make this state and nation more of what it should be for all its citizens. Instead, attempts to console "good ole boy's and girl's" collective consciousness by removing racist language from the state constitution seem just as meaningless as "the state school board's "critical race theory ban" [which] doesn't ban critical race theory, according to Whitmire's assessment because: 1) CRT is not taught in public elementary or secondary schools, and 2) "It doesn't teach that one race is better than another or that one sex or gender is better than another." Again, Whitmire's reporting factually states that CRT is "[t]aught almost exclusively in some law classes and in graduate-level courses" and "examines how social structures and government systems disadvantage minorities, sometimes to the benefit of Whites who are unaware of the privileges those systems give them." Again, the necessity for CRT to help explain what Blacks endure daily is due to the legacy of slavery and racism White supremacy in the U.S.A. Sadly, vile values that lead to such abhorrent double standards, misinformation, and outright lies are still being waged by current segregationists under the guise of right-wing conservative republicans working for all the citizens of Alabama.

In short, currently, in the state of Alabama, European American Whites can celebrate their history through revisionist ideals to commemorate White supremacist secessionists as courageous confederates who fought for "our way of life" rather than treasonous traitors to the nation who killed their White countrymen to defend selling their Black countrymen for profits controlled by the minority White male southern aristocracy with monuments, schools branded with confederate soldiers and holidays. Yet, Black high school students can't celebrate our history as they want, even if that celebration is historically factual and accurate during Black history month.

Montgomery, AL. one city, two perspectives. The birthplace of the civil rights movement and the cradle of the Confederacy. The idea of the Confederacy looks to the past, but the civil rights movement is still ongoing toward a glorious future. In the past, state officials appeared all-powerful with White citizens councils, troopers, and state authority in Lilly-White control, which encouraged White supremacist citizens to scream, "2, 4, 6, 8, we don't want to integrate". But today, my White brothers and sisters, your children are much more aware and attuned to the reality of racial oppression and inequality than you ever were. They already see you, their grandparents, and great-grandparents for who you were. Now is the time to show them what you've learned. Either way, Blacks here in Montgomery, across this state, within this nation, and worldwide will continue to resist all oppression of our inalienable human rights. Our future will be freedom. 

"That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained; And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed; Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will; Until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; We Africans will fight, if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil."―Haile Selassie I Emperor of Ethiopia 1963 Address to the United Nations

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