Project Logic Ga

The term “Black history” is not only the study of Blacks in history but also the study of Blacks in American and international history.  At my Black college, we said Black is not a chapter in American history; America is a brief chapter in Black history.   

History is not reserved for names and events we can easily recite.  The schools and churches that toiled selflessly to keep the Black family strong and composed during bleak periods in our past belong to history.

History is often revisited, revised and rewritten.   Does history change or do we change?  I want to admit now wrong I was about a local piece of history in South Georgia.

An often forgotten aspect of American history is the toil in agriculture of slaves, former slaves and sharecroppers until the early 1970s.  We must remember the sons and daughters of the South and their contributions to building the economy of this nation.  

As a child, a mural of Blacks farm workers in field covered the wall of the local post office—White bosses were keeping records and “supervising.”  When the new post office open after I was an adult, the mural found its way into the new building.  The want-a-be radicals among us considered going covert be cooler heads prevailed. 

Chester J. Tingler did the mural in 1939 as part of the New Deal Post Office Artwork project commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.  It is my understanding that many of the artists were attempting to record the efforts and importance of the Black workers rather than subjugate them/us.  So, I appreciate that art from a different perspective—it’s indispensable Black history to me.   

http://www.wpamurals.com/Georgia.htm

http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/resources/6a2q_postalmurals.html