Happy Black History Month

It’s already February! It's the Time of the month and that means it’s Black History Month. Celebrating, honoring, and embracing the Black culture.

History of Black History Month

Black History Month started in 1915 when the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. That September, the Harvard-trained historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson, and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), an organization dedicated to researching and promoting achievements by Black Americans and other peoples of African descent.

Woodson wanted a wider celebration for Black Americans and decided the ASNLH should take on the task itself. In February 1926, Woodson sent out a press release announcing the first Negro History Week. He chose February because the month contained the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two prominent men whose historic achievements African Americans already celebrated. (Lincoln’s birthday was February 12; Douglass, who was formerly enslaved, hadn’t known his actual birthday but had marked the occasion on February 14.)

As schools and other organizations across the country quickly embraced Woodson’s initiative, he and his colleagues struggled to meet the demand for course materials and other resources. The ASNLH formed branches all over the country, though its national headquarters remained centered in Woodson’s row house on Ninth Street in Washington D.C. The house was also the home base for the Associated Publishers Press, which Woodson had founded in 1921. In 1926, it created "Negro History Week". As early as the 1940s, efforts began to expand the week of public celebration of African American heritage and achievements into a longer event. This shift had already begun in some locations by 1950 when Woodson died suddenly of a heart attack at home in Washington. After Woodson's death, the rise of the civil rights and Black Power movements in the 1960s, young African Americans on college campuses were becoming increasingly conscious of the historic dimension of their experience. Younger members of the ASNLH (which later became the Association for the Study of African American History) urged the organization to change with the times, including the official shift to a month-long celebration of Black history.

In 1976, on the 50th anniversary of the first Negro History Week, the Association officially made the shift to Black History Month. Black educators and Black United Students at Kent State University first proposed Black History Month in February 1969. The first celebration of Black History Month took place at Kent State a year later, from January 2 to February 28, 1970. Six years later, Black History Month was being celebrated all across the country in educational institutions, centers of Black culture, and community centers, both great and small, when President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month in 1976, during the celebration of the United States Bicentennial. He urged Americans to "seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history". On February 18, 2016, 106-year Washington, D.C., resident and school volunteer Virginia McLaurin visited the White House as part of Black History Month. When asked by President Barack Obama why she was there, McLaurin said: "A Black president. A Black wife. And I'm here to celebrate Black history. That's what I'm here for."

Things to Do on Black History Month:

1. Read Books written by Black Authors.

2. Watch Black History films like Lee Daniel's The Butler, Stomp the Yard, Hidden Figures, Do the Right Thing, Spiderman: Across the Spider-verse, Marvel's Black Panther, and Marvel's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

3. Support Black Businesses.

4. Pay a visit to African American museums.

If you are in the DMV area, come visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture or visit nearby.

5. Educate Children

6. Spread Black History Facts Hidden or Unhidden on social media.

Source from History.com