We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us

I have often remarked to people, and blogged here, that had I been a young man in the 1950s and 1960s here in America, chances are high that I would have signed up with Malcolm X and not with Martin Luther King, Jr.

MLK's movement would not have given the outlet for the anger within, but Malcolm X would have.

After all, even now, well into middle age, I am one angry man.  It is a surprise that I am not dead already from such a pent-up anger.

On this Thanksgiving Day, should one celebrate or mourn the first Thanksgiving that happened 400 years ago?

For the Wampanoags and many other American Indians, the fourth Thursday in November is considered a day of mourning, not a day of celebration.

Because while the Wampanoags did help the Pilgrims survive, their support was followed by years of a slow, unfolding genocide of their people and the taking of their land.

In 1619, a ship called the White Lion brought the first enslaved people from the African continent.  Two years later, in 1621, and about 700 miles away, another group of white settlers observed the first Thanksgiving. 

The decades that followed were some of the darkest and cruelest in human history.

Malcolm X phrased it so well: “Our forefathers weren’t the Pilgrims. We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us. We were brought here against our will. We were not brought here to be made citizens.”

How should we deal with the dark history of a country that is supposedly a beacon for freedom and democracy?

The eminent documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns, says: "The dark chapters of American history have just as much to teach us, if not more, than the glorious ones, and often the two are intertwined."

Today, too, is a good day to learn from those dark chapters.