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IDKMYDE: What Black History Month Was Meant to Correct · The Breakfast Club

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: What Black History Month was meant to correct. I welcome back.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Know it alls to another episode of the most anticipated
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: podcast on the Black Effect Podcast Network, especially in February,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: entitled I didn't Know Maybe you didn't either. I'm your
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: host B Dott and for the final seven episodes of
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Black History Month, we reopening some case files.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: That's right, let's.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Start here, because Black History Month didn't happen because America
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: suddenly got curious. I told you at the beginning of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the season. It happened because the story was being told wrong.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Much like in twenty twenty six, one hundred years ago.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty six, Carter G. Woodson looked at America's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: textbooks and realized something very dangerous black folks was either
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: invisible or only being mentioned when something went wrong. So
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: he opened up a case file on history itself. And
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna do. For these last seven episodes,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: we reopening them. And what I have for you to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: kick off the episode are three of the most useless
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: facts you'll never need, not a day in life about
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Black History Month.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Up.
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  Speaker 1: First, of course, you know, Black History Months started as
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Negro History Week one hundred years ago this year, but
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It wasn't to celebrate, it was to correct.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Your second useless facts, Carter G.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Woodson believed that a black history was not taught accurately,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: racism would always feel logical to the people that benefited
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: from it most. He literally said that he wrote it down,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: we got receipts. And your third useless fact is he
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: never wanted a special month forever.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Carter G.
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  Speaker 1: Woodson wanted the truth taught everywhere every day. And now
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: that I've given you those three useless facts, I asked,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: do you know what was needed?
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Because I didn't. I didn't know. I didn't know.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I didn't know, didn't know, I didn't know. I mean,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: here's the uncomfortable truth. A lot of American history isn't missing.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Information is missing honesty. Slavery gets softened, reconstruction gets rushed,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: resistance gets labeled as riots. Success gets detached from black
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: people and handed to the system that wasn't accidental. Look
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: after slavery ended, the biggest threat wasn't black poverty.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: It was black progress.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Black people voting, black people holding office, black people owning land,
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  Speaker 1: building schools, creating wealth.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So the story had to change.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: If you rewrite the past, you can control the future,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and that's why myths were created. The silber Waw wasn't
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: about slavery or reconstruction filled because black people weren't ready.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: How about integration fixed everything? Or this is the most
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: damning one. Why you're bringing up hundreds of years ago.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: We're past all that now.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Each one of those phrases removed. Whose responsibility? Each one
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: makes inequality sound natural, Each one avoids saying.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: You know, we did this on purpose, And Carter G.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Woodson saw it happening one hundred years ago in real time.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Cardgi Woods has said, if a people are thought they
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: have no history, they'll accept whatever position they're given.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: So Black History Month wasn't about pride.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It was about defense, defense against the laws, defense against erasure,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: defense against a future built on edited facts. And here
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: we are, one hundred years later, in twenty twenty six,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: still arget over what gets taught, who gets centered? And
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: while the truth makes people uncomfortable, that tells you everything
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you need to know. The resistance to Black history ain't
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: about the past, It's about the power in the present.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Carter G. Woodson didn't create a month, He created a warning.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: If you don't correct the story, the lie becomes the
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  Speaker 1: tradition look. Black History Month exists because the record was
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: never set straight. And this final week and about adding
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: new facts, it's about fixing the ones that we were
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: already given and I didn't know.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Maybe you didn't either.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I m