Black History and Biblical History

 Wilmington, North Carolina is a charming coastal city. In the spring, azaleas bloom in colors that look like “shades of lipstick your mother wouldn’t let you leave the house wearing.” Every summer, my family visited Wilmington during our beach vacation. We ate lunch on the waterfront and toured the USS North Carolina, a World War II battleship. We also relied on Wilmington’s NBC affiliate for local news.

I thought I knew all about Wilmington—until I went to college. In a history course I learned that post-Civil War Wilmington was the largest city in the state. Most of its residents were African Americans. Blacks dominated the town’s skilled trades, and blacks and whites served together on the city council.

But racial resentment was growing. In the fall of 1898, a Confederate veteran and U.S. Congressman organized a mob that burned down Wilmington’s black-owned newspaper, killed up to 60 people, and ran out of town the members of the bi-racial coalition that had governed the city. The riot (a coup, really) was a turning point in U.S. civil rights. It helped usher in the Jim Crow era, which lasted until the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s restored full citizenship to African Americans.

I didn’t know any of this. I’d never learned that African Americans could vote and hold office after the Civil War until violence and legal cunning stripped them of their rights. I thought that U.S. history was the story of continuous progress. I didn’t know that there were periods of regression, or what a Christian might call “backsliding.”

One reason why I trust the Bible is that Biblical history isn’t whitewashed. The Bible tells a story of progress and regression in ancient Israel. Take the Book of Judges, for example. In Judges, there is a recognizable pattern: the Israelites would sin. As a result, God would hand them over to their enemies. The Israelites would repent, and God would raise up for them a judge who would lead them to victory. Israel’s historians could have told a different story. They could have celebrated the battlefield successes of Deborah, Gideon, and Samson without mentioning the backsliding. But they told the whole story.

This is one reason why Black History Month is important for American history. Black History Month helps us tell the whole story of American history, and a whole history is a more faithful history. If our history fails to mention African American politicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, and academics, our history is impoverished. If our history erases periods when liberty and justice for all waned, our history has been whitewashed.

Are we in a period of progress or regression? It’s hard to tell right now how the present will be judged by the future. I could be wrong, but to me it seems we are in a period of great technological progress and emotional and moral backsliding. What I learn from the scriptures is that, in times of backsliding, God uses adversity to spur repentance and preserves a faithful remnant. So, I am hopeful. And I will try, with God’s help, to be faithful.