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My African-American Story
By: L Louis Garrett

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In 2023 I created this African-American &African Facebook group as my own private library of collected African-American history. I shared it with a 1st cousin, a retired teacher who was searching for topics for Black History Month for an Engineering/ Technical group she was now back teaching part-time. She loved it and suggested I should share it with others. At first I did not think too much of it. It was just a collection of historical information, most I already knew about since PVU and my Black Book Store & Art Work in Flint, Michigan: Nile Valley Inc. I never had a gauge of what may or may not be important to other people. On my cousin's advice, I started sharing it to a limited number of my Facebook Friends, 184 of them in 2024 & 2025 year. People loved it and wanted more. I started added more content. Over 10,000 black facts are posted to date and 10,000 more to come. It is an enjoyable habit. I spend about 4 hrs per 24 hours between waking up and falling asleep, searching for more verifiable historical information to post for myself and other people to read and learn of our great history and story of survival, successes and triumphs.

How did a retired Quality Engineer, that owned and operated his own global quality engineering service business, get here? One might ask that questions. I know I did.

 

I was born in a small East Texas town, knowing nothing about our history except the lies that were told and shown on TV. In 1979-80, I am a senior in high school literature class. We read every chapter in our literature book, except the one chapter on Fredrick Douglas. Now at that stage of my high school life,
I did not know who Fredrick Douglas was. The only African-American history may have been the movie  "Mrs Jane Pittman", "Roots", and that one picture of President Kennedy, The Rev Martin Luther King and Attorney General Robert Kennedy hung on our wall by my grandparents. Does the movie "Sounder" count?

 

The picture in the literature book was a black & white ink rendering, the white space made Fredrick Douglas  look like a white man with crazy hair. Along with everyone else in that High School class, we were delighted to pass up on Fredrick Douglas chapter, not because of racism, because we were High School students, with  one less chapter to read.  Why did the white teacher skip that chapter? I leave that one for you to ponder. We were so happy to skip a chapter, no one asked why that one chapter? or who was Fredrick Douglas? No, I was not the only African-American student in the class, there were two other happy African-American students. Happy at this point is code for ignorant of the facts.

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Fast forward to that summer, June 1980.  I just enrolled into an HBCU, Prairie View A &M University in Prairie View Texas.  A group of new students were given a tour of the campus. The guide walked us  through PVU Banks Library. There was this rectangular room, kinda hidden off the library path (area). It was about the size of the "Shot Gun Shack" in Jericho Texas ( Center Tx. Woods), I grew  up in. The room was filled wall to wall with books, magazine, photos of African-American History. History I knew nothing about. Hanging on one section of the wall was a picture of a famous black leader that worked with U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to bring about a major change, It was than man Fredrick Douglas, the chapter we skipped reading at my predominant white High School. He is Black ! I said out loud to myself. I went over and over in my head, trying to find another reason than the obvious, why we skip just that chapter in the text book? I could not find another reason. ​​​​That is when it hit me like a ton of bricks falling at once. My history had been systematically  hidden from me or white washed. I made a promise to never again be that ignorant (lack of knowledge) about the history of my people (myself). That was the day I woke up. That room off the library area  became my favorite place to read about my people (myself).

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I am 62 years of age I am still learned new Black-Facts. Never again, will we not know about the contributions of our people. If I had only known some of these facts starting in the 5th grade, President & CEO would have been my starting point, not my finish line.
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African-American & African History: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Facebook is the start, not the end vision of that rectangular room for us all. It will also include teaching "White Folks" . You see, Carter G. Woodson only got it half right. "White Folks" were also mis-educated and do not know their own or our true history. Most Black Folk don't know our history started at the beginning of life. Many White -Folk don't know the "White Race was only constructed around 1676.​

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