LIVE! - Tuesday, February 3rd...

This month seize the opportunity to find creative ways to engage family members in African Heritage & Health Week and Random Acts of Kindness Week observances. And while doing so, plan something new for your reunion. 

African Heritage & Health Week (Feb 1-7) celebrates healthy foods, flavors and cooking techniques and heritage of a traditional African diet, and explores cuisines that are central to Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and American South. The week inspires us to eat better by learning traditional culinary history and cooking techniques. Try out recipes this month that can also be replicated and shared during the reunion.

On Random Acts of Kindness Week (14-20), ask family members to identify acts of kindness they’d be willing to provide to family members: shovel snow, cook a meal, mow the lawn, provide a ride, help with house cleaning, babysit, tutor, etc. Then, create gift cards to be distributed as door prizes during the reunion. 

There are many, many, many notable and esteemed African Americans who helped change the world, and are revered and spoken of again, and again, and again during Black History Month. For every notable person, there are countless hidden, unsung heroes. Folks who walked, marched, protested, supported, worked behind the scenes, and contributed to the success of luminaries. All of these folks—notable and not—had families. But not all of their stories are told, and that’s where practical reunion planning comes in.

Within each of our families are many unsung heroes. And if you’re looking for a good family project for your reunion, take on the task of sitting with elder family members, and digging deep into your family tree to see what noteworthy history you can uncover. Then document your findings and share them with your family members, local newspapers, libraries, schools, etc.

To make the point. Doug Harris, Family Reunion Institute Advisory Board Member wrote and published a book, “Raised by Giants” about his childhood hometown that’s considered to be a “legitimate part of Black History”. He also wrote and published his mother’s memoir and a book about his grandfather. All three books document Black History, as well as his love for family and the “village” that raised him. Additionally, Doug’s cousin and her BFF researched the cemetery where their grandparents are buried, and after 15+ years documented slavery in NJ, published a book, and were the subject of an article in NY Times Magazine. 

Family Reunion Institute founder, Dr. Ione Vargus’ family contributions are well-documented in her hometown of Medford, Massachusetts and beyond. For starters, she was Temple University’s first African American dean as well as the first female dean of the School of Social Work. Her father, Edward Dugger, founded the 372nd Infantry, an all-African American National Guard Unit, where he served as lieutenant colonel and commanding officer, earning him a place in Black High Society. He was the first African American in Medford to have a public park named after him. Her mother, Madeline was named Massachusetts Mother of the Year in 1952, the first black woman to hold that honor. Her sister, Madeleine Dugger Andrews, was the first African American elected to Medford’s School Committee and had a school named in her honor in 2000, The Madeline Dugger Andrews Middle School. Her brother, Eddie Dugger, frequently referred to as a one-man track team during his college years, was said to have single handedly put Tufts University on the map. He was one of the first African American aeronautical engineers in the nation. The Dugger Memorial Auditorium at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base, where he worked thirty-three years, was named in his honor.

There’s a lot we all can learn about our family’s past and our ancestor’s achievements throughout history.

If you haven’t already started to uncover your family’s story, “what are you waiting for”? Use your family reunion to get the relatives talking, planning, researching and documenting your contributions. 

"Black history isn’t a separate history. This is all of our history, this is American history, and we need to understand that.”   - Karyn Parsons

“Won’t it be wonderful when black history and Native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.” 

- Maya Angelou

“As long as people can be judged by the color of their skin, the problem is not solved.”    - Oprah Winfrey

"Love your blackness…set out to do a good job and do that job so well that the living, dead, and unborn could not do it any better.”  - Martin Luther King, Jr.

“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”     - Shirley Chisholm

“We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.”    - Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”   - Frederick Douglass

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”   - Nelson Mandela

“Black History Month is a time to recognize the lived, shared experience of all Black folks who have fundamentally shaped, challenged, and ultimately strengthened America. It’s about taking an unvarnished look at the past so that we can create a better future. As we mark 100 years of celebrating Black history, let’s honor the sacrifices of the leaders who came before us, and recommit ourselves to continuing their work.” 

- Barack Obama

“History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.”    - Carter Godwin Woodson