In a world torn apart by di­vi­sions of race, re­gion, re­li­gion, caste, class, gen­der and more, the first to strike is the colour of the skin. This has been fur­ther deep­ened with fash­ion fo­cus­ing on mak­ing one look more beau­ti­ful if you are of a par­tic­u­lar colour.  As Sikhs show up on the world stage, they take pride in their brown skin tone.  Un­like many other stu­dents from Pun­jab pur­su­ing pe­riph­eral stud­ies in Canada, a His­tory and Pol­i­tics stu­dent with a spe­cial in­ter­est in Art His­tory -Gurleen Kaur of the Uni­ver­sity of Al­berta Uni­ver­sity has delved into the arts of the Black com­mu­nity. This piece and the ac­com­pa­ny­ing video, ex­clu­sively for The World Sikh News ar­tic­u­lates the brief back­ground and sig­nif­i­cance of Black His­tory Month in the United States and Canada es­pe­cially re­lat­ing to the work of artist Kerry James Mar­shall. She also men­tions why Sikh artists, writ­ers, jour­nal­ists and ac­tivists should re­late to this.

As the stereo­typ­i­cal im­age of the Black com­mu­ni­ties be­ing drug abusers, hooli­gans and more per­sists de­spite Black Pres­i­dent Bar­rack Obama, the jour­ney is still a chal­lenge with the su­premacy of the op­po­site colour still deeply en­trenched in the eyes and minds of peo­ple. Yet, how the Black com­mu­ni­ties re­cently as­serted them­selves by vot­ing for Pres­i­dent Don­ald J. Trump, shows the abil­ity of the Black com­mu­ni­ties in en­forc­ing their so­cial and po­lit­i­cal progress. Black writ­ings, black art and black so­cial cam­paigns for equal­ity have con­tributed to this de­vel­op­ment.

A cen­tury ago, he Black His­tory Month was launched in 1926 by his­to­rian Carter G. Wood­son and the As­so­ci­a­tion for the Study of Ne­gro Life and His­tory, ini­tially, cel­e­brated as “Ne­gro His­tory Week” dur­ing the sec­ond week of Feb­ru­ary to co­in­cide with the birth­days of Abra­ham Lin­coln and Fred­er­ick Dou­glass. In 1976, it was ex­panded to a month-long cel­e­bra­tion and of­fi­cially rec­og­nized by the U.S. gov­ern­ment.

The goal of Black His­tory Month is to rec­og­nize and cel­e­brate the con­tri­bu­tion of African Amer­i­cans to the his­tory and cul­ture of the United States. Crafted to coun­ter­act the mar­gin­al­iza­tion of Black his­tory in the main­stream ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem in the United States, the prime tar­get was to high­light the achieve­ments and strug­gles of Black peo­ple through­out his­tory.

Over the years, Black His­tory Month has had a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on Amer­i­can so­ci­ety. It has helped raise aware­ness of the con­tri­bu­tions of African Amer­i­cans in var­i­ous fields, in­clud­ing sci­ence, lit­er­a­ture, pol­i­tics, and the arts. The month-long cel­e­bra­tion has also pro­vided a plat­form for dis­cus­sions and de­bate about race, equal­ity, and so­cial jus­tice.

While there is still much work to be done in terms of racial equal­ity, Black His­tory Month has played a cru­cial role in pro­mot­ing a more in­clu­sive and ac­cu­rate un­der­stand­ing of Amer­i­can his­tory.

Kerry James Mar­shal­l’s Child­hood and Artis­tic Jour­ney

One of the glo­ri­ous per­son­al­i­ties of the Black move­ment was Kerry James Mar­shall, born on 17 Oc­to­ber 1955, in Birm­ing­ham, Al­abama, dur­ing a time of sig­nif­i­cant racial ten­sion and seg­re­ga­tion in the United States. His fam­ily moved to South Cen­tral Los An­ge­les when he was a child, seek­ing bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties. Grow­ing up in the Watts neigh­bour­hood, Mar­shall was deeply in­flu­enced by the so­cial and cul­tural dy­nam­ics of the area, in­clud­ing the Watts Ri­ots of 1965, which were a re­sponse to sys­temic racism and po­lice bru­tal­ity.

Mar­shal­l’s in­ter­est in art be­gan at an early age. He was in­spired by the il­lus­tra­tions in chil­dren’s books and the mu­rals he saw in his com­mu­nity. He at­tended the Otis Col­lege of Art and De­sign in Los An­ge­les, where he honed his skills and de­vel­oped his unique style. Mar­shal­l’s work is char­ac­ter­ized by its fo­cus on African Amer­i­can life and his­tory, of­ten in­cor­po­rat­ing el­e­ments of the Black ex­pe­ri­ence in Amer­ica. His paint­ings are known for their vi­brant colours, in­tri­cate de­tails, and pow­er­ful nar­ra­tives that chal­lenge tra­di­tional rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Black peo­ple in art.

Highly re­spected among Black artists, Mar­shall is fa­mous for his com­mit­ment to rep­re­sent­ing Black cul­ture and his­tory in his work. He is seen as a trail­blazer who has paved the way for other Black artists to gain recog­ni­tion in the art world. His work is cel­e­brated for its au­then­tic­ity and abil­ity to con­vey the com­plex­i­ties of Black iden­tity. Highly ac­claimed by artists and crit­ics of other com­mu­ni­ties, Mar­shall is rec­og­nized for his tech­ni­cal skill and the im­por­tance of his con­tri­bu­tions to con­tem­po­rary art. His abil­ity to ad­dress is­sues of race and rep­re­sen­ta­tion in a way that is both thought-pro­vok­ing and vi­su­ally stun­ning has earned him a place among the most in­flu­en­tial artists of his gen­er­a­tion.

He has had a pro­found im­pact on Black so­ci­ety by chal­leng­ing stereo­types and pro­vid­ing a more nu­anced rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Black life in Amer­ica. His work has been in­stru­men­tal in bring­ing is­sues of race, iden­tity, and his­tory to the fore­front of con­tem­po­rary art. By de­pict­ing Black peo­ple in a va­ri­ety of set­tings—rang­ing from every­day life to his­tor­i­cal events—Mar­shall has helped to broaden the nar­ra­tive around Black ex­pe­ri­ences and has in­spired a new gen­er­a­tion of artists to ex­plore sim­i­lar themes.

Kerry James Mar­shal­l’s work and Black His­tory Month both serve as pow­er­ful re­minders of the im­por­tance of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and the need to ac­knowl­edge and cel­e­brate the con­tri­bu­tions of Black in­di­vid­u­als to so­ci­ety.

Are brown artists and writ­ers lis­ten­ing?