The unheard voices of the past

Who was Mary Jane Patterson?

Who is Terrell Owens?

As February has moved on and Black History Month - 2007 ends, I wonder what percentage of readers - assuming there are any - will be able to answer both questions. It is my impression, sadly, that more will know who "T.O." is than Mary Jane Patterson.

We, as a country, have lost sight of the people and their deeds that are truly important, particularly the people who graced our past. The people from our troubled, formative days that struggled mightily to make our country and our people greater. People whose acts of dedication and hard work lifted people up.

Mind you, this is not a problem with any particular race; it is a problem of our culture. In the constant media bombardment in the great "Look At Me" Age of our nation, the "celebrity du jour" almost always pushes out any shadows of true heroes. Again, as I grow older and more mellow, I see such trends that, in my humble opinion, are becoming too serious to ignore.

Our youth, black and white, have the wrong heroes. Our impressionable young people are wearing the latest jerseys of T.O. (by the way, he is a football player) or Alan Iverson and wouldn't be able to tell who Mary Jane Patterson was or what she meant to her time and to the post-emancipation black race if a gun was pressed to their temples. The accomplishments of Mary Jane Patterson, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois have been long pushed to the unconsciousness by the cacophony of the relentless media and their deafening "hype machine." Similarly, I could easily find more 18 year-old white children who know the birthdays, bra sizes, favorite colognes, etc. of Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan than could explain who Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Maggie Lena Walker were and what they meant to American History.

Apparently, the more attention from "Access Hollywood" or "The National Enquirer" one can acquire - even through the most notorious, vulgar or uncouth antics - the more you are recognized as a person of "importance." And, the obvious corollary: the society that celebrates infamy is a short-lived one, indeed.To further my point, one only has to loo at the - as AOL called it - the "outpouring of grief" over the death of the nonentity, Anna Nicole Smith. One such writer was quoted as saying "I truly believe she had a lot of love to give and just wanted to be loved back. Also I looked up to her because of the background she came from. Humble roots and making it big time gave me inspiration." Need I say more?

Every race, people and nation need heroes, for lack of a better word, to lift their eyes to the heights that can be achieved by that race, that people and that nation. The vision of our youth (and the majority of adults) in America are fixed on the thugs, the hoodlums and the hedonists.

So, during Black History Month (and, if there was one, White History Month or Asian History Month or...well, you get the picture) who and what are we remembering? More to the point, what becomes of what W.E.B. Du Bois called "the talented tenth?" Lamentably, they will remain unheard and uncelebrated, the sounds of their voices drowned out by YouTube and iPods.

And the beat goes on and on.