Ezora Proctor remembers sitting around the table with her husband and children at mealtime and the conversations they shared.
They discussed what they’d done at work or at school, the highs and lows of that day, but they didn’t just stick to the present. They also talked about history, about everything and everyone who came before them.
“We have to appreciate the past to appreciate the present,” Proctor said. “Our ancestors worked hard for privileges and rights that we have today.”
Her children are grown, but the 76-year-old pillar of the Black community in Crowley is still having those conversations, coordinating activities and book donations throughout the nationally designated Black History Month.
She and fellow members of the National Association of University Women are donating books about important people and moments in Black history to students at four elementary schools in her Acadia Parish hometown this month.
The goal isn’t for the books — or the conversations — to remain within the classroom. It’s just as important that they make it into the home and community, she said.
“It starts with the home,” she said. “We must constantly tell the old stories to our children in the homes lest they forget. We’re trying to perpetuate family and community conversation.”
These conversations should not be confined to the Black community.
“Every person of every background needs to know history,” said Rick Swanson, professor of political science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “History is a teacher itself. We learn from history — how to avoid repeating it — from a thorough, complete history.”
As Proctor said, “Black history is our history — all of our history.”
‘Learning doesn’t stop at graduation’
As a retired university dean and professor, Phebe Hayes appreciates the responsibility educators have in facilitating these conversations and teaching history, but she echoed Proctor in calling for others to join in shouldering that responsibility.
To be read:What to read during — and after — Black History Month, according to local librarians
“Of course, schools have a responsibility for educating children but I think parents, cultural institutions (e.g., museums, libraries, archives), and the students themselves have a responsibility also,” said Hayes, who is the founder and president of The New Iberia African American Historical Society.
Hayes reminded that learning doesn’t, and shouldn’t, stop with the completion of high school or college.
“If we rely only on information that we are taught and don’t continue to read, then our knowledge about the world ends at graduation,” she said. “So, I think we should all be life-long learners: read books, listen to public radio, go to museums, etc.”
Due to sheer volume, this has to be an ongoing process, Swanson explained.
“Each new generation has to learn history over and over again,” Swanson said. “And there’s so much history to learn. It’s a life-long effort.”
As a community institution, UL Lafayette can play an important role in facilitating conversations and providing resources to families, educators and others, Swanson said.
The university has several upcoming events to do just that. A virtual lecture called “Knowledge Makes a Man Unfit to be a Slave” will take place Wednesday at 6 p.m., focusing on the value of Black education and academic institutions. The event is free, but registration is required.
The next day there will be a free screening of the documentary film “A Crime on the Bayou” at 6 p.m. at the Ernest J. Gaines Center. A discussion about the film, which centers on racial injustice during desegregation, will follow the screening.
Then there will be a public forum entitled “A Dream Deferred, not Denied: Desegregation of Higher Education” at 3 p.m. Saturday at Blackham Coliseum.
More:Only 2% of teachers are Black men. Here’s how groups aim to change that for Louisiana students
Learning within the classroom is a significant part of Black history education, and Hayes, among others, advocates that it be integrated throughout textbooks and lesson plans.
“African American history is United States history and should be infused throughout existing U.S. history courses,” Hayes said. “As an American, I have always been uncomfortable with the designation of a single month to celebrate and teach African American history as though our history is separate from the history of the United States.”
Contact children’s issues reporter Leigh Guidry at [email protected] or on Twitter @LeighGGuidry.
More:Lafayette school board member: ‘Black history needs to be taught in our schools’
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