Feb 16, 2023, 7:43 AM ET

Celebrating Black history means choosing to create a legacy of strength, not death

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily of Live Action or Live Action News.

What does it really mean to celebrate black life? We may ask this question each year as Black History Month comes around. Different influencers and celebrities do their best to shine a spotlight on people, circumstances, or causes that they believe celebrate Black history.

As I get older and more aware, I find that I greet this time of year with a little bit of melancholy.

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To me, celebrating Black history means celebrating Black life. I’ve been inspired through my journey with names like Dr. Mildred Jefferson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, and so many others.

All of these valuable people who made such significant contributions to not only Black history, but American history. Real men and real women who mined through challenges of true adversity and helped give us all something to look up to, something to aspire to. If they could achieve such success, we can.

That’s what celebrating Black history is to me. Yet, that’s not what we see now.

What are we celebrating, and what is our legacy?

Instead, we listen to entertainers who promote death via abortions. We silence people’s voices and “cancel” certain Black voices in the media because they don’t meet the agenda. We see a consistent blind eye being turned to Black-on-Black crime, and the high abortion numbers in the Black community.

We turn silently away as Margaret Sanger’s legacy of killing of the Black population is realized, and instead we scream about Black people’s ‘right to choose’.

Sometimes, I feel uncertain what it is we are celebrating. How can we celebrate black lives that are lucky enough to be born all the while fighting to destroy those in the womb? It sort of seems like people have placed a greater value on those walking around among us, than on future generations that are created, which could do so much good for the legacy of Black lives.

There is a deep contradiction in our culture, and when I speak on it, I am often told that I am not the race I am (Black) because I don’t fit the narrative.

Unfortunately, many fantastically strong Black Americans are encouraging the idea that we should not be judged by the content of our character, or by the fact that we continue to rise, educate, and create paths that truly inspire and empower the next generation. They do not encourage us to look beyond race and use our character equally. Instead, they imagine ways to bring equality by judging ONLY race.

And yet, we kill our own at such a rapid rate.

In a New York Post opinion piece written by Dr. Alveda King on August 13, 2022, King states that easy abortion access has created a Black apocalypse. The Black community ignores her and all of the factual information she continues to bring to light on how we, the Black community, are killing our own faster than anything else.

I can’t help but wonder, “What’s the legacy going to be in the black community?”

A detriment to ourselves

I don’t need a month — the shortest month of the year — to celebrate Black history. As a Black woman, every day I have the ability to be inspired by real, true Black leaders… people like Sarah Boone born in 1832; Brown Elliot, who became the first African American commanding general of the South Carolina National Guard; or Phillis Wheatley, who was purchased from West Africa at the age of eight, but was educated and became the first African American to publish poetry in 1767; or Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler, the first woman doctor in the United States in 1864.

These members of Black history — American history, our history — valued life. They valued hard work. There was no expectation of things being handed to them. There was, instead, the expectation that if they worked hard enough they could achieve things. Can we say that their attitude of fortitude exists on a large scale today in the Black community?

If it does, we certainly don’t see it.

Walter Hoye says, “Abortion has killed more blacks than lynching and slavery.” As I reflect on that, I realize what a detriment to ourselves we’ve become. Instead of personal responsibility, we’ve allowed others to sell us a life of easy answers with abortion. We’ve allowed things to be dumbed down in the name of equality, and we turn a blatant blind eye to the destruction of Black lives all around us on a daily basis — destruction done at the hands of other Black people in the community; destruction done at the hands of believing a lie sold to our community and generations before us from Margaret Sanger.

The legacy I want my children to know

This is not the legacy I want my children to know. Instead, I want them to understand that the Black community is filled with fearless, hardworking achievers — people who understood boundaries, but refused to sit in a box. They used grit and determination. They navigated their journeys with a type of strength of character and deep personal respect. The accepted consequences for their actions, good and bad. They persevered. They drew on the fortitude of their ancestors to fuel them forward. They studied hard. They worked tirelessly. They became the substance of the bedtime stories I tell my children.

Knowing the real statistics that exist within our own Black community saddens me. Still, I remain hopeful.

I know that the spirit of our ancestors still exists within us all. It is with that hope that I continue to celebrate this month. It is that hope that allows me to pray over all of those in our community each and every day. And it is that hope that allows me to persevere in the face of the adversity I am faced with from my own Black community.

Strength, not death, is what I choose as my legacy. What about you?

Bio: Toni McFadden is a pro-life activist and the author of Redeemed: My Journey After Abortion,

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