During President’s Day weekend, we had the chance to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture with friends. Of course, we decided to go during Black History Month. The culture for African Americans has progressed so much and made an impact in America, leading to controversy over cultural appreciation or appropriation. Black culture originated from the migration of people during the African Diaspora. New foods and cooking styles influenced other cultures, such as occurred when enslaved people came from West and Central Africa to America and the Caribbean. But even in more modern times, Black culture influences everything from fashion to music, appreciated by other ethnicities, and impacting perspectives on African Americans in society.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Black Culture can mean a lot of different things to everyone. Music, for instance, is one of the biggest attributes of Black Culture. The sounds of instruments, lyrics, rhythm, and melodies have been used for centuries to bring communities together all over the world. The African American community has used music as a way to pass messages and topics that emphasize their place in society and the struggles they have faced towards societal change, even before slavery. Many genres of music have been influenced or even copied from Black people. Genres such as Rap, Hip-Hop, and R&B have opened a new way for African Americans to express their thoughts and feelings in a world that is not fully racially accepting. Making their own place in the world of music. From the time before slavery to the 21st century, the evolution of music in Black culture has always had an impact in society, to the desegregation of popular clubs, to the Soul Train awards, and eventually the world-renowned Grammy awards.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s, oversized clothes, street wear, and long acrylic nails and gold jewelry became popular. Black culture has been explored by other cultures, too, like white Americans. Braids and cornrows with beautiful creative patterns have drawn a massive amount of attention for a while now. Various music genres over time have originated from our culture such as jazz, blues, hip hop and gospel. In the art perspective, our culture has demonstrated a diverse perspective to the cultural landscape through influential voices such as Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Malcolm X, Fredrick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and more.
━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━
Black culture has contributed to art, style and food. Creative minds have pushed the evolution of movements to introduce our community to better opportunities as well as having a safe space to be ourselves, unapologetically. The evolution of Black culture has, and still continues, to pave the way for African Americans and people of color, for bigger and better opportunities. The importance of Black culture hasn’t been given the full credit it deserves, but continues to showcase excellence and sets the standards for the African American community to be better and to be proud.
