Did you know Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas both have birthdays this week?

Did you know that is why this week in February was chosen as the first Negro History Week a hundred years ago, and is why we now have Black History Month?

And did you know my daughter, a writing professor at Columbia, for my last birthday, sent me a terrific book — Baldwin…A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs?

And did you know this all leads up to me sharing with you my latest painting, “Free”, showing three of my heroes…James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and Ella Fitzgerald?

Now you do.

I have had this painting (the painting seen above) hanging in my bedroom ever since I completed it a couple of weeks ago. I look at it every morning when I awaken, and I think about it for some time.

Like all paintings, it is a message to myself that I am still deciphering. Maybe it has messages for you as well (lots of symbols in it that came to me as I painted it).

Their message to us — despite living in the difficult, authoritarian oppression of their world, they found how to fully express their creativity and showed we can live Free.

An appropriate message for what we are all now experiencing throughout America, don’t you think?

BTW — the painting looks like a collage, but it is fully drawn and painted, not a cut and paste (artist pride speaking).

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I believe this is a great time to remind ourselves of the wonderful heritage we all share…even though I am not black and grew up in a bigoted, racist family in Kansas.

I don’t want to take anything away from Black ownership of this time, but I also agree with Morgan Freeman, the great actor and oft brilliant stand-in for God in movies,

“I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.”

— Morgan Freeman

Black History is American History, AND I do want to keep Black History Month, which is now celebrated all over the world.

Yes, history and heritage are plural and are shared…at the same time, each of us needs to take pride in individual and collective accomplishments.

So, as I listen to jazz and spiritual musician Yusuf Lateef’s notes coming from my speakers as I write this (bragging…my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity of talking with Lateef backstage at one of his last concerts), I am reminded of all that would be missing from my life without our Black history and heritage (I don’t really like Polka music).

I hope this thinking doesn’t come across as self-serving because what I want to convey is that I can’t be Black, but I can take the time to appreciate what the Black experience has given all of us (infinitely larger than just the arts that I touched on here).

Suggestion — this week, give yourself a treat and watch the videos of Baldwin’s race discussion with Margaret Mead and his dialogue with his friend Maya Angelou (all on YouTube).

Remember — What we can’t appreciate, we can lose.

Painting and words by: Dan Beam

I am an old white male who loves Black History Month