Jan. 6 hearings show the need to protect our democracy — and resist ‘history thieves’ | Opinion

Like many other American, I have been watching the hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection, and I believe that America, and the democracy that we have come to take for granted, is in big trouble. Watching the hearings also brought to my mind many incidents of our history.

Growing up Black in America wasn’t always so great for people who look like me. I am 84, and I have seen a lot of pain inflicted on Blacks and other minorities, simply because we looked different. So I shudder when I think our democracy as we know it now is threatened.

As a child, I watched my uncles go off to World War II, only to come back home and be ordered to sit in the rear of the bus — in their uniforms — after they had been willing to die for a country that didn’t love them back.

I remember listening to my uncles telling their war stories. One of them, Uncle Buster, never got over having to kill another human being, and he turned to drinking to drown his sorrows. I suppose it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t come home to the hate-filled eyes of some white Americans looking at him. Or if he’d at least been respected and honored for his role in helping to keep America free.

I thought about Uncle Buster and the thousands of Black soldiers who fought in that war, and the ones after that, as I watched the hearings. I thought about the many civilians who died to save America’s democracy. And I am concerned when I think that we could lose it all because some White men in high places would rather nurture the Big Lie, than face the truth and get on with the upbuilding of America.

When my uncles joined the U.S. Army, the Armed services were still segregated. But they went anyway. I think they kind of thought that if they showed how much they loved America by being willing to die for her, things would be better when they got back home. It wasn’t. Black men were still being lynched. And Jim Crow was still alive and well.

As a child, I watched my mother struggle to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, sometimes working two jobs to make ends meet. She always told me, and my brother to strive to make something of our lives so we wouldn’t have to struggle as she did. She told us this, even though we still lived at a time when life for Blacks was not a crystal stair.

Yet, we youngsters believed our parents and our teachers and the dreams they had for us. Even at a time when life was drear for them, our parents, teachers, and neighborhood surrogate mothers encouraged us to believe. And so, we did. We looked past the signs in the buses that said “Colored Seat from Rear” and the “Colored Only“ signs nailed up over public water fountains. We looked to the future.

The future was here before we knew it. Changes happened because some brave people were willing to be beaten and thrown into jail for freedom’s sake. Some even died for that right. Changes started to appear on the horizon. We were optimistic.

While I am not too optimistic about what I saw on Jan. 6, 2021, and what I have learned from the hearings, I still have hope — that those who have the power will do the right thing for our country.

Despite the mass shootings and all the other internal ills that plague our nation today, America has come a long way. The fact that I, a Black woman, am writing this column for a white-owned secular newspaper is proof of how far we have come as a nation and as a people. But it doesn’t mean that we have arrived.

I believe we still have a long way to go, especially when I think of how some people don’t want we Blacks to tell our story anymore because the truth and ugliness that is embedded in our history just might make some white children feel guilty.

It is too bad nobody thought about how 6-year-old Black Ruby Bridges felt back in 1960 — as she was escorted to an elementary school shielded by two towering U. S. Marshalls, while whites, many of them parents of children her age, yelled racial slurs and threats at her, a little girl. It was an ugly scene. So, I can understand why some white people are ashamed to let their children know what happened back then. But ugly or not, it’s a part of our American history, folks.

The history-thieves don’t want us to tell the story of Emmett Till, either. Till was a 14-year-old Black boy who was tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for acting on a boyish dare and whistling at a white woman.

They don’t want us to talk about “Bloody Sunday,” when the late Congressman John Lewis, and many others with him, were gassed and beaten nearly to death as they marched peacefully across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis had marched alongside the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the right of every American to be able to vote.

No, the history-thieves want to make it a law not to tell my history. They want to steal it and bury it, never to be seen or heard of again. What they don’t realize is that it is their history too. And try as they may, they can’t erase it.

These were my thoughts as I watched the hearings. I am hoping that someone will be held accountable for what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. I am hoping that America will wake up and face the fact that our history happened. And that it’s OK to teach our children our history and to let them know that we don’t want to go there again.

However, I am afraid that if those who are trying to steal our democracy just as they are trying to steal our history, are allowed to get away with it, history will repeat itself. And America will be in deep trouble. If this happens, our past is nothing to be compared to what our future will be.

Historic St. John Institutional Baptist Church celebrates its 116th birthday

It’s Happy 116th Birthday to the Historic St. John Institutional Baptist Church at 1328 NW Third Ave. in Overtown.

The congregation will celebrate the occasion with a two-night revival to be at 6:30 p.m. on July 18 and 19. The revival will be led by the Rev. Dr. Antione Hutchins, pastor of the Christian Unity Baptist Church in Waldorf, MD.

Also, in keeping with its outreach ministry, the church will host a Vacation Bible School from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. July 20–22 at the church. Participating children will be served a hot breakfast and a hot lunch. Their activities will include arts and crafts, physical education, and a daily Bible lesson.

The Vacation Bible School is open to children ages 3 to 18. To register send an email to: StJohnMiamiInfo@gmail.com.

Bea Hines can be reached at bea.hines@gmail.com.