Maya Angelou once remarked, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Sadly, this agony is routine to millions of Blacks, whose stories are often untold or unheard, let alone published and read by the world. My first book, It was never about a hot dog and a Coke! was my personal account about Ax Handle Saturday and the 1960 Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP sit-ins. I wrote the book for several reasons: 1) The local press blacked out all news about Ax Handle Saturday and the sit-ins which led to that infamous day; 2) there was a dichotomy between “revisionist civil rights history” and the real civil rights history truth; and 3) I wanted to both tell the story and set the record straight before more “revisionist history” distorted real history.
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Unless WE Tell It…It Never Gets Told! tells some of those stories while also focusing on racism. In the academic arena there is a saying, “If it is not written down, it did not happen.” Black history is subject matter that seldom makes its way onto the pages of American History. Racism is also subject matter that does not make its way onto the pages of history and yet racism is an issue we must discuss. Certainly racism is treated as a taboo subject or a four-letter word. Author and Atlantic columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates said that for Black people in America, racism is a physical experience of fear and violence. WE simply cannot afford to ignore stories about the legacy of Black history, and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement any more. Those who tire of hearing about racism should ask yourselves, what if you were Black and had to live through the daily vulgarity of
Unless WE Tell It…It Never Gets Told! tells some of those stories while also focusing on racism. In the academic arena there is a saying, “If it is not written down, it did not happen.” Black history is subject matter that seldom makes its way onto the pages of American History. Racism is also subject matter that does not make its way onto the pages of history and yet racism is an issue we must discuss. Certainly racism is treated as a taboo subject or a four-letter word. Author and Atlantic columnist Ta-Nehisi Coates said that for Black people in America, racism is a physical experience of fear and violence. WE simply cannot afford to ignore stories about the legacy of Black history, and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement any more. Those who tire of hearing about racism should ask yourselves, what if you were Black and had to live through the daily vulgarity of