Photo of the Month, Feb. 2012

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Well, we just missed Valentine’s Day.  I hope all of you lovers and sweethearts got what your hearts desired.  I’ve been getting comments that my blog should be a bit more serious.  To those of you who make suggestions, thank you for your ideas!  I’m going to try a few different things this year, and though overall I’m probably going to stay my regular old jovial self most of the time, I genuinely enjoy getting your comments, emails, and phone calls, so please keep them coming.


This month is Black History Month, or African American History Month, or African American Awareness Month.  Those phrases used to bring equal amounts of interest and concern and confusion to me.  It’s February.  It’s winter.  Until very recently, how many African Americans had you seen in the Winter Olympics?  Including the Jamaican Bobsled Team, I can come up with maybe seven in my lifetime.  I wondered why this month was chosen.  I did a little research - it’s because it marks the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. 


Personally, I was never completely comfortable with the label ‘Black History’ or ‘African American History’.  It should be called American History if it happened in America.  I think by calling it Black or African American History it does two things:


First, it can be used as a buzz word for anyone who isn’t black to say, “this story is not about you,” and it might keep them from looking at it.  Second, it still plays the race card and ends up separating everybody in the history books.  I think it would even save money if it were just called American History; you’d just make one book.


This summer I was asked to volunteer my time to photograph and document some grave sites at Eden Cemetery just outside of Philadelphia in Collingdale, PA, which is where I took this photo.  Eden Cemetery is America’s oldest African American public cemetery.  Before it was established in 1902, blacks in this area were not allowed to be buried in the same cemetery as whites.  That also got me - if you get married, it’s until death do you part, so that old rule allowed people to take prejudice to the grave. 


I always have believed that a lot of time and energy is wasted on prejudice and belittling people to make them feel like less of a citizen.  I believe to my core that everyone is created equally and should be treated equally under the law. 


...I know some of you may be laughing because I have a t-shirt hanging in my studio that says, “I’m allergic to stupid people.”  Please laugh, I’ll laugh with you, because that t-shirt’s a joke.  That’s the regular, old, jovial self thing I was talking about in the first paragraph.


After walking through the cemetery, photographing things, I came across the grave shown in the photo of Rev. Dr. Charles Albert Tindley.  Honestly, I just thought it was a very nice looking gravestone, I didn’t know who he was.  But then I found out that he was the creator of the hymn, “We Shall Overcome,” that has been sung by people trying to better themselves all over the world, not just in America. 


Standing there looking at this man’s grave, thinking of his contribution to America and the world, it hit me that the area we live in is surrounded by history.  History is not just at the Smithsonian, or in museums you have to travel to or pay to get in to.  This is just in a cemetery I have driven by many times and didn’t know its history. 


I think my major point is, we should all treat everyone as best as we can, we should all look at everyone’s history and be proud of it, even if we’re not in it.  Even if our ancestors were looked upon as being bad or cruel, it’s still a part of what makes our country great, because that’s what we went through as a country, and learning about it helps us get to where we want to be now. 


And I know, coming up in a few more months, there’s going to be a lot of talk on television about how bad off we are, and how no one listens, and how people are fighting.  Not to sound like Anne Frank, but everybody is good if they’re given the opportunity to be good.  Think of how much easier and more wonderful everything would be if they just went by the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.


So, I guess that was your American History class for the day.  Here’s your homework for the month.  I also found that Marian Anderson was buried at Eden Cemetery.  Google her, too.


-Kevin S. Nash


Photo Details:

Grave site of Rev. Dr. Charles Albert Tindley at Eden Cemetery, Collingdale, PA.

February, 2012

 

An Equal Chance in Life