American history in black and white

Mark was surprised at his own ignorance.

He's a reader who e-mailed me in response to my recent column about lynching. "If someone had asked me to estimate how many people were lynched between 1865 and 1960," he said, "I think I would have guessed around 75.

"I am struggling with getting my brain around the number 4,700 in your column ... Appalled and disgusted doesn't come close to describing my thoughts.

"But astounded as I was to see that number in your column, I am also stunned by my ignorance. ... Most people would consider me fairly well-informed. I went to college; I read the newspaper. The mainstays of my TV diet are PBS and the History Channel. ... Yet I was completely ignorant of 4,700 lynchings."

I thought of Mark when I heard about John Perzel. He is speaker of the Pennsylvania State House and a critic of the Philadelphia School District's recent decision to make black history a required course.

Perzel has questioned the idea of singling out this history over that of other groups. The schools, he said, would be better off concentrating on "basic reading, writing and arithmetic. Once we have them down pat," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "I don't care what they teach. ... Students should understand basic American history before we go into African-American history."

Which suggests that not only should there be a required course in African-American history, Perzel should sign up ASAP.

To begin: Can we dispense with this false equivalency between the black experience and that of other American ethnic and racial groups? I hate to play "my ordeal was worse than yours," because I think that demeans all our ancestral passages. But the fact is, nobody — with the singular exception of the American Indian — suffered in this country as blacks did. Our experience here is unique and uniquely telling. So the notion that a black history class requires a counterbalancing class in Irish-American history is but a diversionary lie.

What's most vexing, though, is the inference that black history is not "basic American history." It's an unintelligent idea, probably unintentionally bolstered by Black History Month, which while bringing attention to that which would otherwise be ignored, also fosters the notion of a history separate but unequal.

For the record: America's economy was once balanced on the free labor of black people. America's most ruinous war was fought for the freedom of black people. America's greatest social movement was to secure citizenship rights for black people. America's wars, its culture, its science, its struggle to vindicate its founding promise, have always featured — often in prominent roles — black people.

So how is the history of black people not "basic American history"?

The problem is, black history leads us places we don't always want to go, shows us things we don't always want to see, teaches us lessons about the capacity for arrogance and inhumanity that we don't always want to learn.

This is not the American history of Iwo Jima and "one small step." It is a more painful, more complete and truer American history. Small wonder some of us find it easier to turn away. For centuries, we've turned away. Turned away so much till even some black people think they have no history and even an educated man goes about without knowing there was once a time this country lynched blacks at a rate of nearly one every two days. These are truths we've learned to hide — and hide from.

Perzel's objection says a lot about his — and our — cowardice and irresolution. Without black history, you can never truly understand "basic American history."

And maybe that's the point.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@herald.com