Ben Jealous: Setting the record straight on an important piece of Black history

(TriceEdneyWire.com)—With the start of Black History Month, I brace myself for the mis-telling of Black History yet again. In schoolhouses and everywhere the stories are told, a persistent myth shows its ugly head: the ridiculous notion that great Black leaders are not just exceptional but exceptions. It is an idea rooted in the ahistorical and unnatural misperception that the most notable Black Americans were superhumans that sprung forth from collective misery. It discounts the many, many Black leaders who were—and are—the children and grandchildren of courageous leaders in their own right. Paul Robeson was a phenomenal actor, orator, singer, athlete, and activist. The family that produced him might be even more impressive. His father escaped enslavement to earn two college degrees and become a prominent minister. His mother was part of the Bustill family, who were famous abolitionists and included Grace Bustill Douglass, the crusading abolitionist and feminist. Kamala Harris’s path to the vice presidency began as a transformative district attorney. She refused to pursue the death penalty, and shifted her department’s punitive focus away from sex workers and squarely onto sex buyers and traffickers. She both provided a model for the movement to elect more Black and progressive district...