I am proud that since 1999 when I became the editor of The Madison Times and later publisher & editor of The Capital City Hues, every February has started out with a Black History Month issue. And today’s issue is no different.

I learned about Black History from many sources, one could say. When I was involved in Project Self-Help & Awareness, I would listen to the tales of the civil rights leaders from some of Mississippi’s towns and hamlets. It was a wonderful education and I learned that every community had to undergo its own civil rights transformation and movement. While civil rights policies are enacted on the federal and state levels, for the most part, if the Black community in a town hadn’t pushed for its rights and gotten involved politically, then there would be little, if any, civil rights law enforcement. Given the violent response in many of these communities by the Ku Klux Klan and/or law enforcement, I can’t help but admire these brave souls.

I also took classes in UW-Madison’s Afro American Studies Department. In many ways, I learned the theoretical underpinnings of the struggles that the people whom I had met had gone through

And then there is my two years studying at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi back in 1975-1977. Between programs put on by the students and university and just hanging out, I learned immensely outside of the classes I took, which were very good in introducing me to some of the early Black writers as well as the Black history that was never taught in Wisconsin.

And I did have an empathetic experience to the civil rights era when the house I was living in with my friend Eddie Jackson burned down while I was off with a friend for Thanksgiving. I always felt that it was arson because it burned so hot and quickly. My motorcycle that was parked alongside melted in many places. Ours was an interracial household. And there wasn’t any investigation. They just came to turn off the utilities.

While I was a voracious reader back then, I always tried to take in the oral histories of the people I met or who were around me. There is something about that one-to-one experience that enhances the knowledge.

I guess that is why I enjoy interviewing people so much because there is still a lot to learn about Black history because it is evolving before our very lives. About 40 years ago when I was developing proposals for the Madison Urban League, I had to appear before the South Madison Redevelopment Committee to ask their endorsement of a business developer position we were trying to get funded.

On that committee was Myzell Alexander, a resident of South Madison and fervent member of St. Paul AME Church. I would see Myzell occasionally over the next 40 years. He always seemed to be quiet and shy. But as it ended up, I was blessed when Myzell was one of the people I was interview on the historic and modern-day role of the Black church. They said that Myzell had to be talked into it by the pastor. When it came to Myzell’s turn to speak, it was like Black history had come alive. Myzell came of age in Madison in the 1960s and as a Black man, he faced a lot of hostility and negativity because of racism. He talked about blatant racial harassment on the job at the post office and in the community. St. Paul’s was literally his sanctuary where he once again was reminded that he was a good man and child of God.

And as I looked into his eyes as he talked, I knew he spoke truth to power. He wasn’t exaggerating. He just spoke the truth.

And in that instance I knew that Madison has a lot more rocks to kick over to get rid of the slithery things of racism that lie underneath.

What Myzell had to say is what I needed to hear, that is if I was every going to speak truth to power myself. Black History Month is about all of us.