Black History Month Speaker At Bensalem High School

BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, PA —A retired reservist will serve as the guest speaker at a Black History Month event in the Bensalem Township School District later this month.

Michael A. Anderson, a chief warrant officer, works for the Department of Transportation in the Federal Aviation Administration as a district facility manager for the North Florida Region.

The program will be held at Bensalem High School on Feb. 17.

He is responsible for the navigation, communication, automation, weather, power, environmental systems and services, and the associated infrastructure utilized by the air traffic controllers, other governmental agencies, and the flying public at the terminal airports staffed by the agency.

Anderson has been associated with the agency for more than 25 years.

Anderson was born in Philadelphia, the youngest of four offspring to the Rev. Gary and Catherine Anderson. His parents moved to Jacksonville, Fla., where he attended the local middle and high schools.

After high school, he attended the University of Florida for three years before joining the Marine Corps.

Anderson attended recruit basic training at MCRD Parris Island before being trained in Millington, Tenn., as a marine air traffic control radar technician.

He served in Okinawa, Japan, and then was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Ca., before continuing his service as a Marine reservist.

Anderson then worked as an electronics technician with two defense contractors before he joining the FAA.

"Black Resistance” is the theme of this year’s observance, which starts Wednesday and continues through the month.

Since 1976, every U.S. president has set aside February as a month to celebrate the achievements of African Americans and their role in U.S. history.

Events in February will explore “how African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression, in all forms, especially the racial terrorism of lynching, racial pogroms, and police killings” since their arrival on the shores in the 1600s, according to the sponsoring Association for the Study of African American Life and History.

The first Black History Month observance was held 97 years ago. Called Negro History Week at the time, it was established by Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson, the son of illiterate former slaves, who believed that the important contributions of Black Americans had been largely overlooked in published accounts of U.S. history.

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He established the Association for the Study of African American Life and History in 1915 to create a social scientific collection recording and publicizing the accomplishments of Black Americans.