Vincent Harris

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Understand the past, empower the future

This February, students across the country celebrated Black History Month. They read books by black authors, wrote research papers on civil rights activists, memorized Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech and watched videos about the Underground Railroad. And as they learned about the struggle of the past, many began to recognize it in their own present – when a cashier squints suspiciously when they walk into a store, when they turn on the news and see another person who looks like them lose his life to senseless violence. These lessons are anything but history.