In the African tradition, call and response yokes "the word" and "experience" to a higher purpose. For the slave, call and response spoke of freedom. In the Black church, it means "I'm with you, brother pastor." Brian Thomas' column "Call and Response" looks at our cultures, our commitments, our traditions, and our families as we forage to find deeper meaning and connections in the day-to-day.

The dim pastel lights rise on the elevated portion of the stage. Two podiums flank the proscenium arches draped in Kente cloth and other African prints, foreshadowing the show at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland, Oregon. The show we are about to see is a sort of "Kwanzaa pageant", during which the Nineteen Rays of the Sun, in their "coming-out" party, will share their knowledge of our history. The young men from the Portland Chapter of the Bridge Builders, a group headed by Harvard-educated Kevin Fuller, teaches many young African American men in Portland about themselves and their culture. The Nineteen Rays of the Sun is the name selected by this year's graduating class to distinguish themselves from some of the past classes in the Bridge Builders. Every winter across the country young men and women of color who have experienced their first full half-year, or a semester as an adult, celebrate similar coming out ceremonies. The women's coming out pageants are generally known as cotillions, while these young men, the Bridge Builders, have an Afro-centric spin to these precedings.

The blustery evening culminates in a step show put on by next year's class, and a half dozen speeches given by the queens from historically Black colleges and universities. Therein lies the problem. The exception that I took is not really with the evening. Indeed, what a fine way to teach responsibility than to have the young men modeling it to other young men. I certainly do not take exception with the unbroken circle of agape, as the Bridge Builders call the four and half years of love and support that they give to each other. Nor do I begrudge the queens who adorn the stage their due. Indeed, we need to see more images of beautiful, articulate African American women giving speeches about "I'm Not Giving My Black Back" (truly beautifully rendered) and other songs of uplift and freedom. Yet, what I do lament is the third-grade treatment in those young women's speeches as the state of our history in America today.

From 15-second commercials meant to highlight our achievements, to African American History Month school pageants across the United States, the history of Africans in America has received only cursory treatment. Seeing our history as a counter to the themes, aesthetics, and heroes of white European-centered history tends to screech rather than shout. Certainly looking at what Dr. James Banks at the University of Washington calls multicultural education, or the stories of marginalized people in the United States and the world, is one of the most significant advances over the last two decades. But nowhere in evidence do I see that history as being shown and celebrated with much depth and detail. After the Black Arts movement, spurred on by Amiri Baraka and the Million Man March exhortations of the last decade, Black America has suffered from a very narrow view of what constitutes being African and American. Certainly brothers Cornell West and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard professors-at least for the time being-- have told us that being academic and nappy holds a great many pitfalls. Bob Marley's plaintive lament, "If you know your history, then you know where you're coming from," isn't being played out with much real attention and substance these days as Africans meld into the larger society. But do you know your history?

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