https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/condoleezza-rice-coleman-hughes-and?token=
Why does Condoleezza Rice celebrate Black History Month? Because, as the former Secretary of State told me last week during a wide-ranging interview: “When I was a little kid growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in fourth grade, we had a book called ‘Know Alabama.’ And you would never have known that there were any black people as part of that history. So I think it’s important to call out.”
What is the meaning and purpose of Black History Month?
Does it risk emphasizing the false idea that black history is separate from American history? Or is it an acknowledgement of the essential black contribution toward creating a more perfect union? Does it allow us to step back and see, as Coleman Hughes writes below, not just what the country has done to black people but what black people have done for the country? Or does its existence reify the idea of race—and, in so doing, perpetuate the myth that we are somehow not all equally American?
In honor of Black History Month, we reached out not only to Coleman, but also to Daryl Davis, Eli Steele, Ronald Sullivan, Sheena Mason, Noah Harris and Brittany Talissa King.
Read their thoughtful contributions below. And you can listen to my whole conversation with Secretary Rice here: