Black History Month is an important reminder that Black people have and always will be as different, special, creative, ingenious, daring, courageous and influential as any other ethnic or cultural group. In 2022, the media and pop culture do a much better job highlighting Black folks’ historical contributions to our country. Events such as the Harlem Cultural Festival and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre have received mainstream coverage and recognition where before there was none. We’ve made progress. However, we are still far away from acknowledging the full spectrum of experiences of Black people today.
Although I was reared in the Los Angeles suburbs, I was born in the mountains of Southern West Virginia in Greenbrier County. My parents and older sister all grew up there. My parents were born in the early-1950s amid formalized segregation. My dad’s high school didn’t integrate until his senior year in 1968.
I distinctly remember going back to West Virginia one summer during high school. One afternoon while out with my dad, he showed me an old water fountain outside of the post office that was still operational. I learned that when he was a kid, he wasn’t allowed to drink at that specific water fountain. I will never forget the feeling I had realizing that, as a child, my father was forced to go to the back of the building and drink from the hose. It seems so simple now. It’s just a water fountain. Why couldn’t a child use a water fountain? The impression on me was clear and lasting. Systemic racism was real then and it’s real now. Sometimes it’s purposeful and sometimes its intentions are less direct, but the result is the same.
My story and the stories of those like my father affect my practice every single day. For example, we recently settled a case where our clients were Spanish-speaking roustabouts in the oil fields of West Texas and New Mexico. They were injured in an explosion and thrown aside by the oil companies. We believed in their story, fought hard, and got a great result on their behalf. I know for a fact these workers were only treated so poorly because of the language they speak and where they were born. I see many, many parallels between and among the treatment of immigrants and formalized segregation and Jim Crow.
Today, I find myself in a position to help those who need it, and I believe I have an obligation to do so. In every community I’ve lived in as an adult, I have worked with nonprofit groups and in some sort of political organizing to affect change. I do this because of my parents’ stories of water fountains, sit-ins, Klan rallies, and allegedly separate but equal accommodations. I do this because of people like the men I represented, who were taken advantage of because they had no one to defend them. I can say with 100% certainty that my story helps me dig deep and fight for clients, particularly those who are cast aside by society.
It is certainly important to highlight what brings us together: the commonality of experiences because of racism, income inequality, and the systematic class disadvantages Black people have endured and still face in America. But I also want people to see that no one way exists to be Black or express your identity as a person of color. The stories of Black people in this country are the stories of people who have achieved great success in all areas of life while nearly always starting at a deficit.
People are alive today who marched with Martin Luther King. People are alive today whose grandparents were slaves. What we consider “history” never happened as far back as we think it did. Our country is only one generation removed from formalized laws that subjected Black people to second-class citizenship. This is why I would like others to learn and to know the importance of Black History Month.
If people can learn anything from the celebration of Black History Month, it should be that Black people have and continue to make amazing contributions to this country, and the world, despite the massive barriers placed in front of them. Each of those achievements deserves praise not only because a Black person did them but because they were done by a person who had every reason to give up and refused to give in to adversity. These are achievements that should be celebrated throughout the year. But for now, or until society changes, I’ll celebrate during the 28 days of the shortest month of the year.
Damian N. Williams is a personal-injury trial attorney with the Dallas-based law firm Hamilton Wingo.