Celebration Time?
Come On!When Academy Award winning actor
Morgan Freeman appeared on ’60 Minutes,’ recently, he did not mince words about the celebration of
Black History Month. “You're going to relegate my history to a month?” The 68-year old star of ‘Driving Miss Daisy,’ ‘Unforgiven’ and
'Million Dollar Baby' was adamant with Mike Wallace about his disdain for the celebration. “I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history!" Black Voices took the opportunity to ask some celebrities what they thought about Freeman’s comment, and their overall sentiments on Black History Month.
Martin Lawrence, who stars in this week’s Number One movie, ‘Big Momma’s House 2,’ agrees with Freeman. “It seems to make sense to me,” he told Black Voices. “I believe black people, we deserve a lot more…it should be 360 days, matter of fact, 240, 60, 90, 2 billion days.”
Ludacris, on the other hand, believes in the concept of celebrating Black History month; but with a twist. “I wish it were in July so it would be a little longer,” the platinum selling rapper and actor said. “Twenty-Eight days and one day on a leap year, all we would want to do is barbeque, that’s why they give us the coldest and shortest month of the year, like a slap in the face. That would be one of things that I would be in the elevator talking to [President] Bush about.”
“Do they have white history month?” That was west coast rap veteran
Warren G’s query. “I’m just asking… You just can’t take out one month and say this is Black History month. We should be a part of American history like he said, all the time.”
“In about 300 years [Freeman] is right, but in the meantime, we've got to have black history,” author, speaker and scholar
Michael Eric Dyson
said. “If it's all relevant and everything was fair and equal, why'd it take you so long to get an Oscar?”
Waxing poetic, Dyson added: “
Martin Luther King said, ‘We have to be careful. Why? Because we're going to integrate ourselves out of power. We're going to give up what we own before we own something bigger and then we'll lose both in the bargain.’ Morgan Freeman, unfortunately, may be an example of this principle.”
Speaking of principles, slam poet personality turned Broadway star
Sarah Jones
commented: “I agree with the principle that Morgan is talking about, and my only fear is that if we let people just put our history in with the rest of the history that they ain't teaching, they'll never know anything about us. And if all we have is a month right now, we need to do the most we can with that month until we can get all eleven months that we deserve back.”
Saul Williams, another multimedia slam poet, told Black Voices that “all these holidays are bullsh@t, even Christmas and Easter,” but did maintain that the celebration of Black History Month is “a way of holding on to things and way of remembering things. It helps to have these certain things. The idea of taking a month to remember the black contribution for this country, sure, I’ll take it.”
“It’s always a separate thing… the way our country sort of honors or recognizes black heroes,” actress
Nia Long gripes. “I think it's unnecessary, but I think we can't control everything so it's about what you do in your home and what you teach your kids, like reading literature and knowing your history. We live in a racist society, that's just the way that it is.”
“I’m very happy that we have the month, and it’s all about focus,” said
Vanessa Williams
. “If you have a month to highlight and force kids to write projects and be aware, it’s better than not having anything.”
“And if it’s going to force people to use that curriculum in their schools where they normally would’ve ignored it, then I think it’s fantastic,” the former Miss America turned TV, film and music star added. “We’ve been doing it for it a long time, and I understand that it’s the shortest month and just a blip in the radar but at least we got something and we should utilize it as much as possible.”
Hootie & the Blowfish frontman
Darius Rucker told Black Voices that the thought never really registered until he heard Freeman say it. “When he said it, it was so clear. I can see the side where people go ‘you’re giving us a month but we deserve more than a month.’ We built this country just as much as everyone else, probably more than anyone else. That’s why they brought us here, to do the work. I never thought about it, you go along with that so much and I was watching that ‘60 Minutes’ piece and he blew me away when he said that. I think he’s right.”
Taking a more diplomatic stance, ‘CSI: New York’ co-star
Hill Harper commented, “Our history as a people cannot be encapsulated into just one month, once a year. However, an annual celebration and remembrance of that history is important.”
“What I’m concerned about is that we often use history as a way of memory without results, without context, without potential,” said
Danny Glover. “And when I think about history, I wonder how do I motivate people to become different kinds of citizen and engaged citizens? How do I use that history as a resistance to the growth in humanity that has been forced upon our people? How do we use that history of understanding the forms of subjugation, the forms of denial, and the forms of marginalization and use that history – and how they still exist?”
“Everyone has it misconstrued,” said comic
Paul Mooney
. ‘[Morgan Freeman] didn't mean don't have a Black History Month. He meant we should celebrate Black history every month. He's cool.”
AOL Black Voices reporters Marcus Vanderberg and Angela Bronner contributed to this article. 