3 reasons to celebrate Black History Month this October

Black History Month originally sprang out of African American joint celebrations of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass’s February birthdays. 'Negro History Week' began in February 1926 to recognise African American contributions to society and raise awareness to the prejudices they had and continued to face.

This week for designated learning emphasis was well established by 1976, when the United States celebrated its bicentennial, and the week expanded to a month. To mark the inaugural Black History Month, President Gerald R. Ford said, 'We can seize the opportunity to honour the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavour throughout our history. I urge my fellow citizens to join me in tribute to Black History Month and the message of courage and perseverance it brings to all of us.'

Since 1987, October has been designated as 'Black History Month' in the United Kingdom. Like its American relative, it is an annual opportunity to reflect specifically on the men and women of the African diaspora, and to commemorate their courage and contributions to society. For several years, I have used the month as an opportunity to research and sometimes even write stories from black history, for my own knowledge and development but also for anyone else who may benefit and be prompted to further research.

As a resident of London, I have tended to focus primarily on British black history. Unfortunately, so much of the month's conversations, even in the UK, revolve around and are framed by the struggle of black people in America, as though we have little black history of our own. I also primarily read and write about people who professed Christian faith, as I too am a Christian - indeed the pastor of a Baptist church - and many, perhaps most, of my friends and colleagues are both black and Christian. So why would a white pastor read and write about black history? Below are some reasons.

1. It's world history, not just white history.

I like both world history, not just white history. Unfortunately, the latter sometimes pretends to be the former. Black history is the story of fellow human beings, made in the image of God and possessing intrinsic dignity and worth. 'Why don’t we have White History Month?', I have occasionally been asked. I have never known the question to be sincere or pure, but the answer is easy enough: We are in a white majority country with, consequently, white majority history. We don't need a white history month, since our history is already told from that perspective. '__history months' are about preserving diaspora culture, educating diaspora communities and neighbours. The motive driving the observance of such months is furthermore to restore to the public view true histories of racialised minorities that have been erased by white supremacist revisionism, suppressed by colonial oppression, or lost due to ethnic cleansing or forced displacement.

2. Black history is often Christian history.

Black and brown skinned people believed in Jesus before white people, and they have continued to believe in Jesus often despite white people. The whitewashing of Christian history is to the deprivation and detriment of all.

The overlap of Christian history with black history almost always tells stories that demonstrate the overlap of the gospel with its social implications, against any compartmentalising and isolationist mentalities. At a devotional level, the convergence of black history with Christian history illustrates Biblical doctrines of human depravity and dignity, persecution and promise, suffering and victory. Reading and relating black history as a white pastor communicates clearly that Christianity is not a 'white man's religion'. It never was. It is for people from all the nations of the world, representing every hue in the palette of human colour. You can be black and Christian, and this needs to be clarified more than ever.

In my ministry, I often interact with adherents to various Afro-centric cults, religious and political organisations that insist that following Christ as a black person is weakness, betrayal, post-traumatic slavery syndrome, or colonialism, and call into question the Christ-following person's authentic 'blackness.' This is the reactive fruit of an older problem: the wedding of notions of white superiority with Christianity. This unholy union takes many forms today: think everything from white-centric proposals for Christian nationalism and professing Christian white people and their enablers who defend slavery (or at best caveat their critiques of it), to people who engage in racial stereotypes and tropes or racist discrimination and abuse. On the other end of the spectrum are Christians who speak as though acknowledging any ethnic differences, cultural distinctives, or the social reality of racial constructs is tantamount to dividing the body of Christ, and so ignore the personal testimonies, unique experiences, and existential realities of being black in non-black spaces, particularly but not exclusively in the Global North. The truth, Biblically, is on an entirely different planet from such colour/culture bigotry and colour/culture blindness: celebrating colour/culture beauty in the context of Christological truth and cosmological redemption, ecclesiastical mission and eschatological worship.

3. A matter of pastoral responsibility

I see researching and writing about black history as a matter of pastoral responsibility and missional opportunity. White people, like myself, can educate themselves or be educated in such a way as to speak about subjects often regarded as being particularly of black interest without an agenda that is colonising, fetishising, tokenising, patronising, or paternalising. I love my church and local community. A significant percentage of people in both are black. I may not be black, but I have a personal interest and a pastoral impulse to learn about the histories, cultures, and experiences of people I serve. For me, it is not 'I have to' but 'I get to' learn about them. Listening, learning, and sharing can be gospel-driven, Spirit-empowered tools for my growth in the knowledge and likeness of Christ as someone set apart by God for His kingdom, helping me be a better person and pastor.

This is revised from an article originally written for United? We Pray, a ministry devoted to helping Christians pray and think about racial strife, and is shared here with permission.