Prince William County Celebrates Black History Month

The 2023 Black History Month Celebration, hosted by the Prince William Black History Committee, brought together county employees and members of the community and included music, stories, poetry and songs to celebrate this year's theme, "Black Resistance."

The celebration explored how African Americans have struggled for rights and equality since the beginning of the United States. 

Prince William Black History Committee Vice Chair Carletta Simms told the audience at the Dr. A.J. Ferlazzo Building that everyone must continue to enhance the understanding and cooperation of the many cultures in the community through education and interaction.

"Black resistance examines how African Americans have fought oppression from America's earliest days," Simms said. "Throughout our history, the resistance has come in many forms culminating in a continuous movement created to obtain freedom and equality. It has been fought in the courts of public opinion, courts of law and on the battlefield. The struggle has been audacious as well as clandestine. Throughout fighting this oppression. African Americans have not waited passively to be given their freedom. Instead, being active, standing up, sacrificing and fighting for those inalienable human rights guaranteed through the Constitution as American citizens."

Sharon Richardson, who has worked with the Prince William County Police Department for 22 years, told the story of her grandfather, James T. Young, Sr., a WWII veteran who served under Gen. George S. Patton in the 3rd Army in Germany and Italy.

Richardson told of her grandfather's service in the Red Ball Express, a famous truck convoy system of Black drivers who moved "everything from butter to bullets."

After the war, Richardson said, the Black soldier came back to a country that remained racist and unwelcoming.

"These men and women discharged their duties with great pride in the face of blatant discrimination and humiliation from their fellow service members," Richardson said. "They fought with great courage and great faith in the promise of America. They did not despair of this country, for they believed in it what the United States of America stood for. Imagine then how awful it must have been to fight for victory and democracy over there and yet be subject to racism and the failures of democracy here at home."

Richardson told of how her grandfather, who - like other Black people - had to pay a poll tax to vote, fought for voting rights. He joined political, social and civic organizations which banded together to register voters in Virginia to campaign against the poll tax. 

'My grandfather taught us that when you are faced with a society that not only doesn't value you but is actively working to keep you in your imagined place, then you must resist those efforts. In other words, legal action is resistance. Education is resistance. Voting is resistance," Richardson said.

Nick Baskerville, a 20-year member of the Prince William County Fire and Rescue System, told the audience of a time when he went to a conference in Washington, D.C., with the single goal of getting a selfie with Carl Holmes, the first Black firefighter in Oklahoma City who retired as an assistant chief.

"Along the way, he helped to advance the fire service with effective training, and he was respected all across the fire service. Then he retired and went on to do more. He created the Carl Holmes Executive Development Institute," Baskerville said of the institute with African American instructors bring their expertise, management and skillsets from their experience in the fire service to promotion candidates across the country. "To put it in perspective, it's like the fire service version of a Historically Black college or university."

"I realized that his form of resistance was him preparing others to help others. The last thing that I realized is that all that I am, I owe. I live eternally in the red," Baskerville said.

Curtis Porter, Chair of the Prince William Human Right Commission, with more than 200 years of family history in Prince William County, talked of his lifelong commitment to human rights. Porter said his first memory of fighting for human rights came when he was just a child.

"When the schools officially integrated in 1966, Jennie Dean High School, in Manassas, was the high school for African Americans. When the schools integrated, Jennie Deane High School became the Jennie Deane Middle School. Three years later, when I entered Jennie Deane as a sixth grader, I was disgusted to learn that the mascot had been changed from the Jennie Deane Bulldogs to the Jennie Deane Rebels. I turned my disgust into an act of resistance that led to the renaming of the mascot to the Jennie Deane Blazers," Porter said.

"Today, I am honored to serve as chairman of the Prince William County Human Rights Commission. It was black resistance that was, in part, responsible for the establishment of a commission with enforcement power to address cases of discrimination affecting the residents and visitors who traverse our county."

Prince William County Executive Christopher Shorter, the first African American county executive, also spoke at the ceremony. 

"It has been said before that Black history is American history. Today, we have seen that Black history is a part of Prince William County's history and that contributions and achievements of our ancestors, of our forefathers, must be remembered and, in remembering, passed down to the next generation. This celebration today is an opportunity to do just that. To remember, to celebrate, to pass down and to grow stronger as individuals, as a community, and certainly as a government," Shorter said.

"Throughout the morning, we've had the privilege to hear about the legacy of those who have evoked change and change by way of resistance, resistance to racism, resistance to discrimination and resistance to oppression. The lives and accomplishments of our forefathers and elders remind us all of the overwhelming imbalance caused by structural racism in this society. This imbalance permeates every aspect of our personal and professional lives. As black people who work for and serve Prince William County, we are also aware of how much more we need to do to create and nurture an inclusive environment for African Americans and other people of color, both within our communities and within Prince William County government. I stand with you in our unified commitment to identify opportunities to increase the level of diversity and inclusion within our agencies, or departments and certainly our government."

Prince William County Poet Laureate Kim B. Miller said Black resistance is "knowing the truth and stating it."

"Black resistance is escaping from the jail cell of lies that you've been told. Black resistance is telling your own story your own way." Miller said.

Miller talked of Bessie Coleman, the first African American female pilot who taught herself French and moved to France because she wasn't allowed to learn to fly in the United States. She talked of Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on "Star Trek." Miller said King talked Nichols out of quitting the show because she was "Lt. Uhura," a trailblazing example, and she talked of Michelle Obama, the most educated first lady in the history of the United States.

Miller shared several haikus.

"I didn't play this race card; I just showed you part of my hand," Miller said in her first offering.

"Strong women are not unbreakable. We just know that you ain't the hammer." She said.

"You cannot divide yourself into factions to make someone else whole," she continued.

"It's OK to be scared. Do it anyway. Scared people succeed too," Miller said.

"They thought they broke you, but you are a glowstick. They just exposed your light," Miller said.

"Dear people, there's no such thing as the right time, but there is a time you make right," she said.

Miller talked of many ways to resist. 

"The resistance is you stop taking media soundbites and making them meals. The resistance is to stop listening to everything they tell you Black people are and listen to our truth. The resistance is to stop telling Black people to stop talking about slavery, but 9-11 comes, and you want us to get in line. We cannot forget something we live every day," Miller said in a poem to end her performance. "The pain of an unhealed wound never heals. If you keep walking on the scar, the person who lived it feels it. The person who walks on it ignores it. Resistance is listening to someone else's point of view and not settling in on your own."

Willie Hardeman, a captain in the Prince William Sherriff's Office with 23 years of service, emceed the ceremony.

Charles Hyman sang the "Negro National Anthem."

The Prince William Joint Honor Guard posted the colors to begin the ceremony, and the Molinari Juvenile Shelter Youth Members led the audience in the "Pledge of Allegiance."

The Black Market Band offered musical selections in alignment with the theme "Black Resistance."

Watch a recording of the 2023 Black History Month Celebrate on YouTube.