Avis Aqua – Student Section – Issue I I

I hope you take my advice. This letter is a little more difficult to write, as I don’t know what you’ll turn out like in, say, 7 years. I can only assume you know more about Black history than me. Although it isn’t necessary to know everything, it’s still important to know your history. Yes, if one person doesn’t know the history, it doesn’t all fade away. And it’s not important because if we ignore history, it’s bound to repeat. It’s important we represent the unsung heroes who weren’t praised for fighting and lost their lives to ensure that our rights were safe. While we celebrate Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, George Washington Carver, Ruby Bridges, Garrett Morgan, and Martin Luther King Jr., everyday individuals deserve representation. The point of doing a noble act isn’t so that you can be praised after you die, but rather so the work you’ve done is remembered. The people who’ve been killed and the ones who’ve been tortured to be made as a warning to keep us in our place are the ones who need to be remembered among the big names. 

Those who disregard their interests to stand up against those who want to keep us down deserve to be remembered. Events like the bus boycott need to be remembered, but the average person doesn’t know about the sit-ins. Moments where the violence spoke louder than our peace, and yet we still pushed on. The freedom riders are those remembered for being harassed simply riding the bus to the South to fight the lack of enforcement of anti-segregation laws. 

I can only assume you know more than I do. Don’t forget: the world doesn’t depend on your knowledge of Black history. It doesn’t gauge your amount of “blackness” to not know the smaller stories. Don’t have the mindset that if you don’t know it, it’s lost knowledge. The world is not your judge, so don’t let them bully you into trying to hold the entirety of our history in your head. Although important, some people carry those legacies and carry them well. 400+ years is a lot of history to understand. Always remember what you know doesn’t make you who you are, but what you choose to do with knowledge because that speaks volumes to your character. 

Always remember.