When I was growing up, many neighborhood institutions and homes of my friends proudly displayed pictures of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus — many times all in a row. No one forced them to do that. No executive order was issued to make it a requirement. People did that because they were inspired by these men, and pictures of them provided a sense of grounding and hope for what kind of country the United States could become. These men worked with and for people who had less, who believed in character, honesty, dignity and equality.
My mother was one of millions who grew up in the segregated Jim Crow South. She always spoke fondly about how Kennedy visited the campus of her HBCU, Texas Southern University in Houston. That visit had a permanent effect on her and her idea of the type of man Kennedy was. She also lived through the marches, boycotts, brutality and arrests that took place during King’s era in the fight for equal rights and respect.
I was born one month after Kennedy met his violent demise and five years before King met the same fate. I grew up surrounded by messages and images of people willing to make sacrifices to uplift others. And posthumously they were honored by communities and institutions with numerous tributes. This has also happened with my great-grandmother, Ida B. Wells, who has been lauded and treated with great respect and admiration decades after she became an ancestor in 1931. She has posthumously been inducted into halls of fame, awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, and had a U.S. postage stamp and quarter as well as a Barbie doll created to honor her. Streets, museums, schools, academic chairs, scholarships and more have been named after her. There are statues, monuments and historical markers with her image. But none of this attention was her motivation for doing her work. She spent her life fighting for equality and justice for all, many times at the expense of her own safety and monetary comfort.
For many who are considered heroes today, the idea that character, and using their talents and skills to help others, matters more than the quest for astronomical wealth or raw unbridled power. As a journalist and civil rights activist, my great-grandmother was far from wealthy. Yet, she left an indelible impact on the world. Generations of my family have lived modest lifestyles that upheld pride in ourselves, family, and culture. When people visit the gravesite of my great-grandparents, some comment on how “small” the joint headstone is for her and my great-grandfather, Ferdinand L. Barnett. They don’t seem to appreciate that helping people was the focus of both of my great-grandparents versus aggrandizing themselves, and having a modest headstone is in keeping with all of our values.
Unfortunately, not everyone values the focus on uplifting others and fighting for a better world for all. Rather than do work that the masses admire and want to celebrate and honor, they tear down honors bestowed upon others. Rather than build their own achievements, they would rather steal and capitalize on those of others.
Within the last year, the 47th president has attacked multiple tributes to John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, including the Center for the Performing Arts, the Rose Garden, and the East Wing of the White House that included another garden created by Jacqueline Kennedy. Based on the numerous teardowns that pay homage to people who upheld ideals of an inclusive society, more destruction will be unsurprising.
In the continued attempt to erase and remarginalize King, the National Park Service no longer recognizes his federal holiday birthday as a free day and there was a late begrudged acknowledgement of his birthday. For Black History Month, the White House issued a proclamation that included sparse nods to achievements of individual Black people while diminishing the systemic oppression that has been an undeniable aspect of the Black American experience. This lack of acknowledgement of triumph over adversity is why Black History Week was started in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson with no permission from White people. Fifty years later, in 1976, President Gerald Ford (a Republican) expanded and recognized Black History Month. Now for the 100th anniversary, the recognition has been contracted and muted.
The tear-down or watering down of tributes and honors that indicate how Black people have existed and contributed to the country are numerous and ongoing — from the destruction of the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., to the removal of panels about slavery and President George Washington’s treatment of enslaved people from the President’s House site in Philadelphia. This destruction is taking place in tandem with the forcing of Jesus onto people through bibles with the 47th president’s name on them. That the lessons of Jesus helping the poor, sick, and disenfranchised and loving your neighbors as yourself are being ignored is in keeping with the hypocrisy that embodies the MAGA movement.
There seems to be an attitude by President Joe Biden’s successor that admiration, respect and honor can be forced under the threat of financial withdrawal or legislative annihilation. No amount of gold trim on self-selected portraits, plaques that disparage predecessors, wrecking balls that dismantle entire structures built to honor others, or bulldozed landscapes will gain admiration from those who believe in kindness, empathy, justice, and equality.
People will still have private or personal ways to incorporate and honor those they admire in the form of portraits or quotes in their homes. People will also continue to read books (even if eliminated from schools), listen to speeches, incorporate messages into music and other forms of art. No proclamation, executive order or freezing of funds can control who others revere, admire and look to for inspiration. It’s possible to tear down a wall, a building, or a garden but that person’s legacy will endure forever.
There is a point where the level of destruction and focus on erasing others tells more about the person engaged in the destruction than it does the people who are the target of their erasure. Doing things like posting an image on social media of former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes; excluding two governors from an annual meeting, one being the only Black governor; arresting Black journalists who covered a story; and dropping production of 250th anniversary commemorative coins honoring Ruby Bridges and Frederick Douglass in deference to White men all exhibit insecurity.
Rather than focusing on building themselves up, some people need to erase or tear others down. Rather than make themselves better, they need to insult and discredit others. Never-ending targeting of those who are revered becomes a blaring indication of a pathetic lack of belief in their own talent and lovability versus well-earned strength. Real admiration of a person is chosen versus forced. And the three men whose pictures graced so many walls of my childhood embodied sacrifice in service to the greater good versus self-engrandisement and bottomless enrichment. While some think that standing on the rubble of a destroyed tribute to another person makes them taller, all it shows is how small, insecure, and petty they really are.
