The city of Springfield, Massachusetts commemorated Black History Month with a flag-raising ceremony. WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill reports.
At the ceremony earlier this month in Springfield City Hall, speakers stressed the importance of keeping Black history alive for future generations.
Gloria Williams, a retired educator with the Springfield Public Schools, and the co-host of the ceremony with her husband, State Rep. Bud Williams, warned that if Black history is not taught it will be lost.
“You know the governor in Florida is trying to muzzle folks in terms of sharing the history by denying the right to have advance AP courses taught in the schools,” she said. “We’ve got to keep the history alive.”
The state representative called for Black history to be a mandatory course in schools in Massachusetts.
“We must teach our history,” Williams said.
Springfield’s Black History Month ceremony, which is highlighted by the raising of the Black American Heritage Flag over the City Hall esplanade, was started 37 years ago by Ruth Loving, known as Springfield’s “Mother of Civil Rights.” Before her death at the age of 100 in 2014, she passed to the Williamses the responsibility for keeping the ceremony going.
This year’s keynote speaker was Rev Dayhige Wright, pastor at Springfield’s historic St. John’s Congregational Church, where the abolitionist John Brown was a parishioner. Wright called for embracing and celebrating the accomplishments of Black Americans.
“Beyond our athletic and musical abilities, we have much more to be proud of,” Wright said. “From our contributions to science and medicine to what we provide in the academy and the arts, we have something to stick our chest out, lift out heads up and be proud of. And for what it’s worth, I don’t have to wait until February.”
The recipient of this year’s Ruth B. Loving Civil Rights Award that was presented at the City Hall ceremony is Amilcar Shabazz, director of graduate programs at the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst.
Also participating in the ceremony were members of the Peter Brace Brigade, a group of Civil War re-enactors, and members of the Third Masonic District of Massachusetts, one of the oldest fraternal organizations in the country.
