Hub Brown, dean of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, is the author of the opinion column “Black History? Our History” published in the Independent Florida Alligator on Feb. 12.

Brown recalls how his family was part of “The Great Migration” when six million African Americans moved out of the South and to the Northeast, Midwest and West. His family moved to Nebraska to find better opportunities and to escape the violence of Jim Crow and the segregated South.

Brown writes, “The Great Migration was one of the largest movements of people in the history of the U.S. between 1910 and 1970. My father landed a job in one of the meat-packing factories in Omaha, and our family story began.”

His journey continued through school and then he began a career as a television news reporter.

“When I left Lincoln, where I was based, and went into rural Nebraska, rarely did the people I encounter, and whose stories I told, look like me. But as a journalist, that mattered little to me. Every human has a story, and every story has value. Their stories were the ones I was putting on the air,” he writes. “How they came to be where they were was vitally important. Their history provided context that helped me understand the present. I learned that facts plus context equals truth.”

He adds, “It says something about the promise of America that so many of those who are descended from Africa, through generations of slavery, Jim Crow, terrorism and discrimination, still believe in it. It’s a part of the story of this country, one of the many ways we understand what it is to be an American. It is why Black history is American history — it’s part of the context that helps get us to the truth of who we all are now.”

Posted: February 21, 2024
Category: College News
Tagged as: Black History Month, Hub Brown, Independent Florida Alligator