Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies

by Colin Kaepernick

history in a society that refuses to shed its white supremacy is contraband.

Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) David Walker In 1829, David Walker, the son of an enslaved person who was born free in North Carolina, moved to Boston. That same year, he published a pamphlet, Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which became widely read and infuriated Southern enslavers. The state of Georgia offered a reward of $10,000 to anyone who would deliver Walker alive, and $1,000 to anyone who would kill him. Here is an excerpt. I ask the candid and unprejudiced of the whole world, to search the pages of historians diligently, and see if [anyone] ever treated a set of human beings, as the white Christians of America do us, the blacks. . . . I also ask the attention of the world of mankind to the declaration of these very American people, of the United States. A declaration made July 4, 1776. It says, . . . We hold these truths to be self evident—that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that when ever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. . . . See your Declaration Americans!!! Do you understand your own language? Hear your language, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776— We hold these tru...

The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it—at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change.

We must begin to understand that a revolution entails not only the willingness to lay our lives on the firing line and get killed. In some ways, this is an easy commitment to make. To die for the revolution is a oneshot deal; to live for the revolution means taking on the more difficult commitment of changing our day-to-day life patterns.

To assign women the role of housekeeper and mother while men go forth into battle is a highly questionable doctrine for a revolutionary to profess.

James Baldwin understood love-as-agency probably better than anyone. For him it meant to love ourselves as black people; it meant making love the motivation for making revolution; it meant envisioning a society where everyone is embraced, where there is no oppression, where every life is valued—even those who may once have been our oppressors. It did not mean seeking white people’s love and acceptance or seeking belonging in the world created by our oppressor.

They saw education as a vehicle for collective transformation and an incubator of knowledge, not a path to upward mobility and material wealth.

The greatest threats to our freedom are hopelessness, helplessness, and the criminalization of rebellion. —Derecka Purnell, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom

Brooklyn Public Library, which offers free eCards

Having different perspectives and viewpoints of history allows us to learn how to be better people; and critiquing one’s country based on lived experiences is not hate but a love so strong that one dares criticize this country to make it better, a more perfect union as stated in the preamble of the Constitution.