Uncovering the history of Black History Month

by Margarita Forbes

Black History Month is an annual observance in the United States for remembrance of important and influential African American people throughout history.  It all began in the mid 1920s by Carter G. Woodson.

            Black Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson strongly believed that truth could not be denied and that reason would prevail over prejudice.   He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), which conceived and announced Negro History Week in 1925.  This was when Woodson realized that his hopes to raise awareness of African American's contributions to civilization had were coming true. The event was first celebrated during a week in February of 1926 that encompassed the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The response was overwhelming, and many stepped forward to endorse the effort.

            By the 1950s, Negro History Week had become a central part of African American life and brought more Americans to appreciate the celebration.  The Black Awakening of the 1960s dramatically expanded the consciousness of African Americans about the importance of black history. 

            In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Finally, fifty years after the first celebration, the ASNLH held the first African American History Month. Now, the entire nation had come to recognize the importance of Black history in the drama of the American story. Since then each American president has issued African American History Month proclamations. And the association—now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH)—continues to promote the study of Black history all year.

            People who are often remembered each year during this month long event, include the infamous Martin Luther King Jr. who used his nonviolent approach to atrocities of humanity force in the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s and 1960s, earning himself a Nobel Peace Prize.  Another black citizen includes Jane Bolin, the first black woman to become judge in the United States (1932), the first black woman to earn a law degree from Yale, the first black woman to pass the New York State bar exam and the first to join the city's law department, opening the doors to many African American women for the future.     

Another significant African American woman in U.S. history was Rosa Parks.  Parks, an African-American civil rights activist in the 1950s, refused to give her seat up on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama to a white man, something that symbolized ending the injustices that she and her race had to endure as a community. 

Many ask “Why is there not a White History Month?” but that is because we essentially celebrate it all year long.  Black History Month is for those who are unaware of, or have simply forgotten, just how many African American people have contributed to making America what it is today.