May Podcast #2: Why I love history

Why love history? Does history matter?

Welcome to rememberinghistory.com where we are remembering history and we’re making it.

Hi, I’m Robin the host and one of many history lovers at this great and groundbreaking podcast show.  Right now, you are at an exciting place to remember African American history, a peaceful place to reflect on the African American experience and a bold place to keep MAKING history every single day.

I’m so glad that you’re here so we can share in this journey together. History should be a shared experience. So, let’s get started.

Hello, habari gani, nangadef! As promised, I will explain these greeting a bit later in the show.

People often ask me why I love history. They say “it’s so boring!” “it’s pointless” and my personal point of debate: “it’s all lies anyway.”

Hmmm…I would love to say that none of those comments are true.  But let me just say that they’re not completely wrong either.  Or at least they don’t have to be.

In elementary and high school, I actually hated history.  Yes, it’s true that I was not always the history lover that I am today.  But, when I was younger I found history to be boring and I definitely didn’t get the point of learning about dead people and past events.

Then I discovered something: History isn’t about past events and dead people. It’s about events and people. As one of my favorite historians put it, “History is not about the past. No one ever lived in the past. They lived in the present. The difference is that it was THEIR present. Not ours. They were caught up in the living moment exactly as we are today. And with no more certainty of how things will turn out we have.”

History does talk about past events—but all (or the vast majority) of those events were people driven. They didn’t happen in isolation. People made them happen.  And those people are just like us today: Making events happen today.

So, why do people think that history is boring, pointless, or untrue? It’s mostly in the presentation. History is usually taught as a series or names, dates and death counts. That’s a pity because history is so much more. It is a story, it’s our story. 

That’s why I love history; I have always been captivated by a good mystery, moved by a tender love story, excited by a dramatic adventure story or inspired by a story of victory or triumph.

Judging by the number of people at the movies or people browsing bookstores, I’m not the only one who loves a good story.

So ANYONE with a reasonable amount of curiosity or interest in people can love history. There is no end to the amazing stories. And history being made today and every day.

About history being a bunch of lies…well people can take a bit of “creative license” when retelling a story. But they can and do cross the line. There are definitely untruths in history and that is especially relevant for people of color. African American history has been retold in ways that, at best, diminish our contributions and, at worse, eliminate not only our contributions but also our very presence and significance in those stories. And that’s the very reason why we should learn history—so we can tell the truth. That’s the very purpose of rememberinghistory.com—to tell the truth of African American history, including the contributions, the victories, the defeats, the challenges, the struggles—whole range of the human experience.

On that note, let’s get started with the history or…the stories.

Let’s start with a few birthdays.

May 9 is the shared birthday of two history makers—white men, actually—who played an important role in African American history.  We will talk about one today and the other will be a surprise for next week’s show. You might think it strange to open today’s show by honoring a white perso