Black History highlighted at CACC

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The Kathryn Tucker Windham Museum and Library presented a Black History Celebration program themed: “Remembering the Past to Push Us Further”, on Feb. 8 in the library.

The program featured Charlie Dixon, Volunteer Fire Fighter for the City of Thomasville with Lifetime Membership status in the State of Alabama Volunteer Fire Association, and Marcus Gordon, Instructor for Coastal Alabama Community College, and sports commentator, as speakers and Coastal Alabama Community College students.

Dixon detailed some African Americans born right here in Alabama. He shared how A. G. Gaston was an example of seeing a need within his community and fulfilled it. In doing so, he was able to feed his family, help his community and become very wealthy. Dixon challenged everyone to see the needs of our community and act.

He ended with an emotional tribute to him from his deceased daughter as of last year, Charlita T. Woods, of how proud she was of her father, the first African American Volunteer Fire Fighter for Thomasville.

Gordon shared a story of a white man who was told everything was as equal on the other side of town as it was where he lived. One day he chose to visit the other side of town, he discovered it was not. The moral of the story, he said, was that things are not always what they seem or what you have been told.

He encouraged everyone to talk to one another; get to know one another.

“People are too busy on their cell phones. Put down the cell phone and talk to people,” he said. If you do, he further explained, you may discover that people are not necessarily what you have been told or what they seem. You might discover something you didn’t know about them and you.

The Coastal Alabama students presented quotes, snapshots, and black history contributions of John Lewis, Rosa Parks, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington, Andrew Young, W. E. B. Du Bois, Nelson Mandela, and Dr. Condoleezza Rice.

The program ended with remarks to never forget to celebrate Black History. The past happened and it can’t be changed but neither should it be ignored. Everyone should allow the past to push us to carry the torch for equality further into the future until justice and equality for one is justice and equality for all.

The program was attended by faculty, staff, students, and the public., including Thomasville City Councilman Roy Madison and former Councilwoman Alberta Dixon.