Why We Choose to Cel­e­brate and Per­pet­u­ate It

In times of great change, hav­ing a sym­bol such as Stevens reminds us of our roots, of those who came before us. It serves to strengthen our resolve for dif­fi­cult tasks and our will and deter­mi­na­tion not just to endure but to pre­vail. It reminds us of the strength we have to draw upon, the duties we gladly under­take and the gifts we pass along to others.

The Asso­ci­ated Press reported that “first lady Michelle Obama hosted nearly 200 school­child­ren for a Black His­tory Month cel­e­bra­tion Feb­ru­ary 18 and seemed a bit sur­prised when the sixth– and seventh-graders from three local schools said yes, they knew slaves helped build the White House, that Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln signed the Eman­ci­pa­tion Procla­ma­tion upstairs in a bed­room named for him, and that the Rev. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights lead­ers met in the build­ing with Pres­i­dents John F. Kennedy and Lyn­don B. John­son to dis­cuss the end of segregation.”

Even more sur­pris­ing to Mrs. Obama might be that, just blocks from her tem­po­rary FB/WE home, is an equally and ele­gantly sig­nif­i­cant three­fold his­tory. And that is of staunch abo­li­tion­ist Thad­deus Stevens, and his name­sake Stevens School founded to edu­cate freed slaves, and the num­bers of Stevens grad­u­ates whose pro­fes­sional con­tri­bu­tions have mul­ti­plied ben­e­fits to the com­mu­nity, our nation, and the world.

This year as we cel­e­brate Black His­tory Month with Lincoln’s 200th birth­day, we are pay­ing spe­cial notice to our own neigh­bor­hood hero, Penn­syl­va­nia Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Thad­deus Stevens. Stevens pressed Lin­coln for the abo­li­tion of slav­ery and insisted that freed blacks be given the tools, through edu­ca­tion, to pre­serve and pre­vail as free men. Stevens under­stood they had to be twice as good, and had four times the obsta­cles to prov­ing them­selves. We also cel­e­brate the grad­u­ates of Stevens School – each a pil­lar of the com­mu­nity and uniquely rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the teach­ings and tra­di­tions that Stevens conveyed.

In this pro­foundly unique Black His­tory Month, it will be the sym­bols such as the will of Rep Thad­deus Stevens, the edu­ca­tion of Stevens School, and the will and con­tri­bu­tions of its grad­u­ates that remind us that no mat­ter how hard things get, we Amer­i­cans can over­come obsta­cles and pre­vail. FBA/ ANC and the com­mu­nity come together to cel­e­brate and per­pet­u­ate this his­tory: legacy with the aspi­ra­tion of youth and com­mu­nity train­ing, pro­grams in keep­ing with the ideals that Stevens fos­tered, and hon­or­ing and dig­ni­fy­ing the his­tory with com­mu­nity involvement.

Mrs. Obama’s reported words neatly par­al­leled our own regard­ing Stevens (FBN Feb.13, 2008. “Stevens School: The Inter­sec­tion Between Black His­tory and a World Class Edu­ca­tion”) encour­ag­ing her young audi­ence “to look beyond the names in the his­tory books and to think about the extra­or­di­nary peo­ple who live in your own world, like par­ents, grand­par­ents and teach­ers, all those folks who play impor­tant roles in black his­tory and Amer­i­can his­tory every sin­gle day.” We hope to share our grand and spe­cial FB/WE legacy of Black His­tory with our new neigh­bors in this aus­pi­cious year of Amer­i­can History.

For more infor­ma­tion go to HISTORIC STEVENS COALITION