Chip Minemyer: Addressing what the history books leave out

Feb. 16—Tifani Fisher knows that American history has long been recorded and taught "through a white lens."

As president of the Allegany County, Maryland, chapter of the NAACP, she works daily — not just during Black History Month in February — to celebrate the contributions of African Americans, both locally and nationally.

And she pushes back on efforts to cover up the truth of racism and the horrors of slavery and cultural oppression — themes that too often get left out of discussions and classroom lessons about the complete American experience.

"There's a part of me that can understand why someone doesn't want to deal with that level of trauma," said Fisher, who also serves as third vice president for the NAACP Maryland State Conference.

"Unfortunately, as a Black person, it's impossible for me to ignore these truths," she said. "It's in my DNA.

"As much as we've made progress, leaps and bounds, from slavery and even the Jim Crow period, we're not there yet. And if we don't acknowledge what happened and the hurt it caused, we can't move forward."

In Johnstown, Karlice Makuchan has been leading regular book discussions aimed at illuminating the difficult truths that have been omitted from the history books and frequently smoothed over — even in settings where the slave trade and plantation experiences might be addressed.

Makuchan is Black History Committee chair for the NAACP Johnstown Branch, and board president with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Ligonier Valley in Westmoreland County.

This month, she has been leading book discussions on "How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America," by author Clint Smith.

The writer, a Black journalist and poet, visited many spots across the country with ties to slavery, charting how those sites address the legacy of oppression and subjugation — or choose not to — in relation to local and national history.

In describing the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana — where visitors can encounter the realities of the brutality of slave owners and the inhuman living conditions for those held there — Smith wrote that the place is "a hammer attempting to unbend four centuries of crooked nails."

The writer also visited Virginia's Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson owned, bought and sold slaves — and fathered children with one — even as he was pondering the nation's movement toward democracy and writing the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence, which declared in 1776: "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."

The contradiction of Jefferson is representative of how many of us learned about and understand — well, misunderstand — U.S. history.

Smith writes: "How do you tell a story that has been told the wrong way for so long?"

Previously, Makuchan's groups read and discussed the book "Banished From Johnstown" — which explored a violent racial incident in the city in 1923 that led to the mayor declaring that all Blacks and Latinos who had not lived there for at least seven years had to leave.

Now, she said, students in Greater Johnstown School District encounter that book about a once-forgotten moment in their town's past.

"The kids read the book in some of the classes at Greater Johnstown," Makuchan said. "If they can keep that up, it will be good."

On Feb. 24, Fisher and the NAACP in Allegany County will host the annual Voice of Freedom Awards Gala — where local residents who have contributed to the Black community and the Cumberland region at large will be honored.

"We wanted to make sure we had this program, so we can highlight those who have done this work before, and those who are doing it now," Fisher said.

She added: "Americans as a whole look more at national history and don't spend a lot of time looking at their local history. Martin Luther King Jr. was considered the leader of the Civil Rights Movement — and rightly so. But it was local activists who brought concerns to his attention so he could come in and speak and address those issues. That movement didn't just happen in Washington, D.C."

Fisher lamented the fact that very few African Americans have been elected to public office in communities across Allegany County.

She hopes to change that by raising awareness of the numerous contributions Black residents have made in places such as Cumberland and Frostburg.

She points to the role Cumberland played in the Underground Railroad, a system of trail stops where locals harbored and aided escaped slaves seeking freedom to the north.

Too often, she said, the complete story of Black heritage is untold.

"We have continually somehow accepted that this aspect of our history should only be taught in cultural classes when you get to college, or only in the Black churches or communities," she said. "This is a great place to start conversations, and get community organizations to tell the story."

While she fears the truth could be buried even deeper if those seeking to remove such stories from schools are successful, she believes her children's generation won't be denied access to that knowledge.

"It's not as easy to keep that information away from them," Fisher said. "When you tell them they can't look at something, the first thing that they want to do is look at it."

Look, understand and respond to the tragic and triumphant story of Black history.