I did not comment on Black History month this year. I celebrated instead by reading “The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story” created by Nikole Hannah-Jones. Practically none of what I read was taught in several high schools and the few colleges I attended culminating in a degree from The College of William and Mary. All that education varied little from the Nikki Haley version of an American Civil War ­not caused by slavery.  

Apologies 

I am a 76-year-old white man born and raised in Kentucky, the last state to ratify the 14^th amendment… in 1976. At age 36 having been married and divorced, served in the Navy, and gotten a degree from the second oldest institution of higher education in America without  looking back, I sold my meager possessions, climbed into my friend’s 1961 Chevelle with him, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend headed to California. I was moving out of the South for the first time in my life. Everything I owned was in that car.  

Unbeknownst to me the trunk, the invisible cartop carrier, and every crevice of our metallic pickle colored conveyance was filled to overflowing with racial baggage, mine and theirs. Since then, I have worked to unpack and jettison the contents of those invisible bags. Along the way, just when I thought I had finally rid myself of my last valise of bigotry, I would whiff that familiar musty rancor of intolerance my family, without knowing it, so lovingly passed along to me. Again, it would be time to disconnect those prejudicial feelings from the reality where I lived. I would like to apologize to African Americans everywhere for not making more progress in erasing my bigotry.  

Thank you for your service! 

It has become a fashionable way to acknowledge people like me who have been in the military. My belated response to Black History month 2024, then, is to thank Black America for their service to this country and to the lofty ideals I was taught in every American history class I attended.  

To our country

I learned Crispus Attucks, a Black man, was the first to die in the American Revolution. Many more African Americans would die before Independence was won. You have served in every armed conflict in American history. You even served in five major American wars before being declared citizens by the 14^th Amendment ratification in 1868. You have taken up arms and died in every campaign since then even when white military personnel on the same side refused to serve with you. 

To our ideals

 When white soldiers, sailors, marines, and aviators returned to their families after warfare, they came home to a peacetime America filled with promise. You returned to a different America where some of you were murdered by white Americans for daring to wear our uniform.

 In slavery, you were denied ‘humanity,’ then, in freedom, citizenship and the right to vote. The First and Second Amendments did not apply to you in the presence of white America. Yet you continued to believe in the promise. 

 When African Americans were better educated and more qualified than any white person in the room, the only jobs available to you were cleaning homes, washing clothes, and mopping floors. You were redlined into ghetto neighborhoods with inadequate schools and denied credit to make improvements on those conditions. Still, you pressed toward the freedom and equality touted in our founding documents. 

 You were mistreated, marginalized, and suppressed. Your homes were destroyed. Your communities and churches were bombed. You have been beaten, mutilated, dismembered, and burned alive. You, African Americans, have been lynched and left hanging from anything that could, conceivably, hold your weight. Yet, you marched on in pursuit of what our founders proclaimed for its citizens. 

 Without your constant striving, there would be no Constitutional Amendments 13, 14, or 15, no Civil Rights Acts of 1964, ‘72, ‘87, or ‘91. Your efforts have driven America forward toward all our ideals. Without you, the soaring words of Jefferson and Madison would be little more than propaganda for rich white men like them. By standing in lines at too few polling stations, by navigating myriad voter restriction laws, by wielding your right to vote you kept a wannabe dictator from being reelected in 2020. Amid Women’s History Month, let me be specifically clear. It was Black Women voters that preserved democracy in 2020 and it is they who will save it again in November 2024. 

You, Black America, are the primary reason the world sees us as the beacon of democracy, freedom, and equality. For enduring the brutality of our past, for your present sacrifice and ongoing anguish and distress in this righteous quest, for the freedoms I enjoy today, tomorrow, and beyond, I, and all Americans, owe you a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. Please accept my deep felt thank you for your service.  

Let us celebrate with action!

White America, it is time to stand up, shoulder-to-shoulder, arm-in-arm with Black America to demand financial Reparations for the horrific crime of slavery and the appalling treatment unto this day. Let us narrow and close the discriminatory wealth gap between us, ferret out and demolish all remnants of systemic racism pervading our daily lives. 

We must secure commitments from those who represent us locally and nationally to act on our behalf rectifying these injustices for all time. We must return President Biden to the White House in November and elect Democrat majorities at local, state, and national levels so we all have the power and control needed to dispatch the sins of our past, to proudly declare, “Promises delivered at last!”