Black People in Black History

I have been engrossed in reading books on African American History.  REALLY ENGROSSED.  From these readings, I have discovered that black history accounts told by black people are  most accurate. While this may seem obvious, one would be amazed at how much we read about black history that is written by white people that is not true but we wouldn’t know it was NOT true because we never read books by black authors to know otherwise.

I wonder if white historians would have the same opinion.

Many of my readings expressed that black people were taught by white teachers to despise or completely ignore their history altogether.  Or, like much of what I’m reading these days, many white people wrote their thoughts on behalf of slaves, which is totally off course because they could never know the experiences of black people in America.  Ever.  So, I question a lot of the black history information I encounter if it is not written by black people.

My friend once told me that an encyclopedia her son was reading said something about slaves being happy. That doesn’t even sound right on any level, but it was in writing and this little black child was reading it.  So, he would have grown up thinking that was the truth if he did not have a mother who knew her black history.

You know what? That wasn’t even the topic I was going to write about. But, I feel more enlightened after writing it.