Black History Month

Celebrating Black History Month has made me think about my own experiences with Negroes - which was the polite term when I was growing up. More often I heard the other N word used. In grade school of course we learned about the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation; Harriet Beecher Stowe's, "Uncle Tom's Cabin", the Dred Scott Decision and George Washington Carver . By the time I was in high school we were living with desegregation of schools and civil rights stories in the news on a daily basis.
I vaguely remember when Corning had one or two black families in residence. The first time I remember meeting and talking with an African-American was when we went to visit Grandpa Ridnour when he was in the hospital in Omaha in 1956. One of the cleaning women was a cheerful, loquacious extrovert who brightened his days. She called everyone "honey", including Grandpa - even when Grandma was in the room.
When I was in highschool, I went to a MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) picnic with my friend Donna. It had been arranged to meet with a group of Black MYFers from Des Moines in the Winterset City Park.
Growing up I remember hearing stories about Ku Klux Klan activities around Corning in the 1920's which I always dismissed. But looking back in online Free Press archives, I find that those stories were true.
I also heard Bedford and Villisca referred to as "Sundown Towns". When I understood the meaning - that no Black person should be in their towns after sundown - I felt kind of proud that Corning wasn't a Sundown Town. Villisca especially was inhospitable to Blacks because for a time it was rumored that a Black man was responsible for the ax murders of eight people in 1912.
What I wasn't aware of was that Black History Month began in 1926 as Negro History Week. It was changed to BHM in 1976. Carter G. Woodson, an educator and historian chose the second week in February because of Abraham Lincoln's and Frederick Douglass' birthdays occurred then.
I've seen many changes during my lifetime in the way African-Americans have been treated. I'm proud to have voted for this country's first African-American president.