What will be remembered?
Ida B. Wells
I am not so interested in dictating to others how they should remember their past. Let the Lost Cause find itself, our search lies within. And when it’s over, we will put Ida Wells up against Nathan Forrest, on any day of the week, and leave the generations to judge. Sooner or later, in the words of Nas, we’ll all see who the prophet is.
In Every Black Man’s Eyes–Death To The Rebel – Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I love that paragraph, as I love the series of posts Ta-Nehisi is doing on what he is learning about Civil War times, and Black folks in those times, beyond the primarily white oriented, surface history that we know so well. He doesn’t have tags or categories on them but when I get some time I’m going to attempt to gather them all and link them as a series (if he doesn’t do it first).
I’m working on a couple of posts about my family history – one of which I had almost completed but then scrapped because I realized that I was telling it all wrong. I think it’s important to tell our stories, our people of color stories, not only of the famous but of our ordinary. I hope to gather links to others doing that as well. Fill in the spaces and break out of the “heroes or thugs” frame we are so often placed in.
(photo of Ms. Wells from here)
Nanette is | Topic: repairing the past, telling our stories | Tags: None
Follow Me On Twitter
No Comments, Comment or Ping
Reply to “What will be remembered?”