My introduction to Black culture happened on the playground of a metro Atlanta elementary school. I can recall moments of pretending to relate to the things my friends experienced. Plastic on their grandmother's sofa. Watching Boyz in the Hood. Singing all the words to Jodeci.
As a first generation Nigerian-American, my family couldn’t show me what it was like to be Black in America so I learned through my peers, media, and eventually through a few experiences of my own.
Most of us learned about Black history in our classrooms. We learned about Martin Luther King’s ’I Have A Dream 'speech and Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on the bus. It wasn’t until I got older and did my own research that I would learn about the hundreds of Black inventors or the contribution that Black women made to the first NASA launch.
When I think about Black history in America, Black resilience comes to mind. And not resilience as it relates to the fight for justice and fair treatment, moreso about our ability to persevere in every way despite the obstacles, excuses, and pressures that would make it very easy for us to give up.
The Oxford Dictionary defines resilience as “the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity. To bounce back.” The American Psychological Association calls it, “The process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.”
When I think about resilience, I envision Sheryl Lee Ralph, the Emmy Award-winning actress who brought us Rita Louise Watson’s mother and Moesha’s step mother. In an interview with Fresh Air, Sheryl Lee Ralph speaks about her journey through the industry and what she endured in her early days of acting. She suffered through anorexia, was pitted against her costars, and even told there was no place in the spotlight for a beautiful Black woman.
Even through this, Sheryl Lee Ralph kept going and in 2022, 45 years after her film debut, she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and in 2023, she won a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Barbara in Abbott Elementary – becoming the first Black woman to win the award in 35 years.
Despite what the world throws our way, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us to break through glass ceilings, leaving behind a pathway for others to continue the legacy.
For centuries, Black people have taken what we were given and made something new and better with it. If you give a Black person a deflated ball, we’ll create a new sport.
You hand us oppression, we’ll create comedy. Black Twitter is evidence that you can literally give Black people a reason to cry, and we’ll use it to make ourselves laugh.
No matter how many barriers there are, we’ll find a way into the fold. No matter the obstacles, we’ll conquer them and persevere.
My accidental yet inevitable exposure to Black culture has been a journey of exploration, understanding, respect, and adoration. From the inventions to the music, from the resilience to the evolution, I am constantly in awe of the history we’ve made as a people and the history we continue to make daily.
As we celebrate Black History Month, I invite you to acknowledge your own individual strength in this journey and your own personal demonstration of resilience. Whether it’s wearing your natural hair in a professional environment or giving your child an ethnic name despite being advised they may never get a job, resilience in the little things is just as important as resilience in the bigger fight.
Every single day, we make history with our decisions; and it’s in these choices that we create opportunities for the generation behind us to do the same.