the importance of black history essay

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Knowing the Past Opens the Door to the Future: The Continuing Importance of Black History Month

No one has played a greater role in helping all Americans know the black past than Carter G. Woodson, the individual who created Negro History Week in Washington, D.C., in February 1926. Woodson was the second black American to receive a PhD in history from Harvard—following W.E.B. Du Bois by a few years. To Woodson, the black experience was too important simply to be left to a small group of academics. Woodson believed that his role was to use black history and culture as a weapon in the struggle for racial uplift. By 1916, Woodson had moved to DC and established the “Association for the Study of Negro Life and Culture,” an organization whose goal was to make black history accessible to a wider audience. Woodson was a strange and driven man whose only passion was history, and he expected everyone to share his passion.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, late 1940s

This impatience led Woodson to create Negro History Week in 1926, to ensure that school children be exposed to black history. Woodson chose the second week of February in order to celebrate the birthday of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is important to realize that Negro History Week was not born in a vacuum. The 1920s saw the rise in interest in African American culture that was represented by the Harlem Renaissance where writers like Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglass Johnson, Claude McKay—wrote about the joys and sorrows of blackness, and musicians like Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Jimmy Lunceford captured the new rhythms of the cities created in part by the thousands of southern blacks who migrated to urban centers like Chicago. And artists like Aaron Douglass, Richmond Barthé, and Lois Jones created images that celebrated blackness and provided more positive images of the African American experience.

Woodson hoped to build upon this creativity and further stimulate interest through Negro History Week. Woodson had two goals. One was to use history to prove to white America that blacks had played important roles in the creation of America and thereby deserve to be treated equally as citizens. In essence, Woodson—by celebrating heroic black figures—be they inventors, entertainers, or soldiers—hoped to prove our worth, and by proving our worth—he believed that equality would soon follow. His other goal was to increase the visibility of black life and history, at a time when few newspapers, books, and universities took notice of the black community, except to dwell upon the negative. Ultimately Woodson believed Negro History Week—which became Black History Month in 1976—would be a vehicle for racial transformation forever.

The question that faces us today is whether or not Black History Month is still relevant? Is it still a vehicle for change? Or has it simply become one more school assignment that has limited meaning for children. Has Black History Month become a time when television and the media stack their black material? Or is it a useful concept whose goals have been achieved? After all, few—except the most ardent rednecks - could deny the presence and importance of African Americans to American society or as my then-14 year old daughter Sarah put it, “I see Colin Powell everyday on TV, all my friends—black and white—are immersed in black culture through music and television. And America has changed dramatically since 1926—Is not it time to retire Black History Month as we have eliminated white and colored signs on drinking fountains?” I will spare you the three hour lesson I gave her.

I would like to suggest that despite the profound change in race relations that has occurred in our lives, Carter G. Woodson’s vision for black history as a means of transformation and change is still quite relevant and quite useful. African American history month, with a bit of tweaking, is still a beacon of change and hope that is still surely needed in this world. The chains of slavery are gone—but we are all not yet free. The great diversity within the black community needs the glue of the African American past to remind us of not just how far we have traveled but lo, how far there is to go.

While there are many reasons and examples that I could point towards, let me raise five concerns or challenges that African Americans — in fact — all Americans — face that black history can help address:

The Challenge of Forgetting

You can tell a great deal about a country and a people by what they deem important enough to remember, to create moments for — what they put in their museum and what they celebrate. In Scandinavia — there are monuments to the Vikings as a symbol of freedom and the spirit of exploration. In Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis celebrated their supposed Aryan supremacy through monument and song. While America traditionally revels in either Civil War battles or founding fathers. Yet I would suggest that we learn even more about a country by what it chooses to forget — its mistakes, its disappointments, and its embarrassments. In some ways, African American History month is a clarion call to remember. Yet it is a call that is often unheeded.

Let’s take the example of one of the great unmentionable in American history — slavery. For nearly 250 years slavery not only existed but it was one of the dominant forces in American life. Political clout and economic fortune depended on the labor of slaves. And the presence of this peculiar institution generated an array of books, publications, and stories that demonstrate how deeply it touched America. And while we can discuss basic information such as the fact that in 1860 — 4 million blacks were enslaved, and that a prime field hand cost $1,000, while a female, with her childbearing capability, brought $1,500, we find few moments to discuss the impact, legacy, and contemporary meaning of slavery.

In 1988, the Smithsonian Institution, about to open an exhibition that included slavery, decided to survey 10,000 Americans. The results were fascinating — 92% of white respondents felt slavery had little meaning to them — these respondents often said “my family did not arrive until after the end of slavery.” Even more disturbing was the fact that 79% of African Americans expressed no interest or some embarrassment about slavery. It is my hope that with greater focus and collaboration Black History Month can stimulate discussion about a subject that both divides and embarrasses.

As a historian, I have always felt that slavery is an African American success story because we found ways to survive, to preserve our culture and our families. Slavery is also ripe with heroes, such as slaves who ran away or rebelled, like Harriet Tubman or Denmark Vessey, but equally important are the forgotten slave fathers and mothers who raised families and kept a people alive. I am not embarrassed by my slave ancestors; I am in awe of their strength and their humanity. I would love to see the African American community rethink its connection to our slave past. I also think of something told to me by a Mr. Johnson, who was a former sharecropper I interviewed in Georgetown, SC:

Though the slaves were bought, they were also brave. Though they were sold, they were also strong.

The Challenge of Preserving a People’s Culture

While the African American community is no longer invisible, I am unsure that as a community we are taking the appropriate steps to ensure the preservation of African American cultural patrimony in appropriate institutions. Whether we like it or not, museums, archives, and libraries not only preserves culture they legitimize it. Therefore, it is incumbent of African Americans to work with cultural institutions to preserve their family photography, documents, and objects. While African Americans have few traditions of giving material to museums, it is crucial that more of the black past make it into American cultural repositories.

A good example is the Smithsonian, when the National Museum of American History wanted to mount an exhibition on slavery, it found it did not have any objects that described slavery. That is partially a response to a lack of giving by the African American Community. This lack of involvement also affects the preservation of black historic sites. Though there has been more attention paid to these sites, too much of our history has been paved over, gone through urban renewal, gentrified, or unidentified, or un-acknowledged. Hopefully a renewed Black History Month can focus attention on the importance of preserving African American culture.

There is no more powerful force than a people steeped in their history. And there is no higher cause than honoring our struggle and ancestors by remembering.

The Challenge of Maintaining a Community

As the African American Community diversifies and splinters, it is crucial to find mechanisms and opportunities to maintain our sense of community. As some families lose the connection with their southern roots, it is imperative that we understand our common heritage and history. The communal nature of black life has provided substance, guidance, and comfort for generations. And though our communities are quite diverse, it is our common heritage that continues to hold us together.

The Power of Inspiration

One thing has not changed. That is the need to draw inspiration and guidance from the past. And through that inspiration, people will find tools and paths that will help them live their lives. Who could not help but be inspired by Martin Luther King’s oratory, commitment to racial justice, and his ultimate sacrifice. Or by the arguments of William and Ellen Craft or Henry “Box” Brown who used great guile to escape from slavery. Who could not draw substance from the creativity of Madame CJ Walker or the audacity and courage of prize fighter Jack Johnson. Or who could not continue to struggle after listening to the mother of Emmitt Till share her story of sadness and perseverance. I know that when life is tough, I take solace in the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, or Gwendolyn Brooks. And I find comfort in the rhythms of Louie Armstrong, Sam Cooke or Dinah Washington. And I draw inspiration from the anonymous slave who persevered so that the culture could continue.

Let me conclude by re-emphasizing that Black History Month continues to serve us well. In part because Woodson’s creation is as much about today as it is about the past. Experiencing Black History Month every year reminds us that history is not dead or distant from our lives.

Rather, I see the African American past in the way my daughter’s laugh reminds me of my grandmother. I experience the African American past when I think of my grandfather choosing to leave the South rather than continue to experience share cropping and segregation. Or when I remember sitting in the back yard listening to old men tell stories. Ultimately, African American History — and its celebration throughout February — is just as vibrant today as it was when Woodson created it 85 years ago. Because it helps us to remember there is no more powerful force than a people steeped in their history. And there is no higher cause than honoring our struggle and ancestors by remembering.

Lonnie Bunch Founding Director

Subtitle here for the credits modal.

The importance of black history and why it should be celebrated beyond February

Carter G. Woodson started the tradition of celebrating black history.

In 1925, Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson, known as the "Father of Black History," had a bold idea.

That year, he announced "Negro History Week" -- a celebration of a people that many in this country at the time believed had no place in history.

The response to the event, first celebrated in February 1926, a month that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, was overwhelming -- as educators, scholars and philanthropists stepped forward to endorse the effort. Fifty years later, coinciding with nation's bicentennial and in the wake of the civil rights movement, the celebration was expanded to a month after President Gerald R. Ford decreed a national observance.

Since Woodson's death in 1950, the organization that he founded, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History -- now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) -- has fought to keep his legacy alive.

Now, nearly 105 years after its founding, one of the organization's biggest challenges is keeping people engaged beyond February.

"One cannot discuss the African American freedom struggle or the civil rights movement without paying attention to white allies who were working alongside black people," Lionel Kimble, vice president for programs at ASALH, told ABC News. "One of the biggest issues we see, especially for those non-black folks, is that the emphasis on black history is divisive and some mistakenly label it 'racist.'"

"But, if we continue to emphasize that all Americans worked towards these common goals, then everyone can see themselves as part of the larger mission."

ASALH, which holds events to promote and celebrate black history all throughout the year, said the organization has made major gains toward promoting African American history to a wider audience, but there are still too many who only recognize black history during the month of February and ignore it for the rest of the year.

"It's disappointing," Kimble said. "But we have to really build on the study of black history and get people to understand the important roles of black folks in the larger narrative of the United States."

Noelle Trent, director of interpretation, collections and education at the National Civil Rights Museum, said it's wonderful to mobilize for Black History Month festivities, but "there's no one season for it. It's continuous."

"We do black history 365 days a year," Trent told ABC News. "We're telling the story of the African American struggle for civil rights, for human rights, and all aspects, through our programming and through our exhibition in various capacities throughout the year."

The museum, which is located at the former Lorraine Motel in Memphis where civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, said it pays special attention to Black History Month and uses it as a time to emphasize educating children about black heritage. The museum specializes in the civil rights era, but Trent said Woodson's mission guides just about all of their initiatives.

"When 'Negro History Week' was founded, black history was not being talked about or written about and people were saying African Americans had no presence in history," Trent said. "What we're able to do here at the museum today through our work is really amplify that historical presence."

"Woodson was dedicated to making African American history accessible to the everyday person. He wanted African Americans, and all Americans, really, to know the African American story and to see themselves in it because representation is power," she added.

As a part of her work with the museum, Trent said she is frustrated that black history tends to be ignored by popular culture once February ends. Instead, she thinks Black History Month should be seen as a "starting point" for a larger conversation about how to incorporate black history into American history as a whole.

"I understand that culturally organizations are in different places, but ideally in 2020 we would like people to be more inclusive. But if you start just doing it in February, then the next step is, how can we incorporate this into other days of the year," she said.

If companies, schools and other organizations "keep relegating the story to just February," they're missing the point of Black History Month, according to Trent.

Kimble, of ASALH, said the organization has seen a growing number of partnership interests from corporate donors and organizations that aren't necessarily "black oriented," as more companies look to address issues surrounding diversity and inclusion.

He said the increase is "very encouraging," but it isn't enough to indicate a significant trend just yet.

"I would like to companies do more," Trent said. "But all we can do is keep pushing and educating folks who have an interest in black history and black studies."

ASALH picks a theme each year to bring to the public's attention important developments that merit emphasis. This year's theme is "African Americans and the Vote."

The year 2020 marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment and the culmination of the women’s suffrage movement. It also marks the sesquicentennial of the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote in 1870, following the Civil War.

"Through voting-rights campaigns and legal suits from the turn of the 20th century to the mid-1960s, African Americans made their voices heard as to the importance of the vote," ASALH says on its website. "Indeed the fight for black voting rights continues in the courts today."

Kimble said the group has events scheduled throughout the year that will deal with civic education, voter suppression, voting rights and other issues that are tethered to this year's theme, but its main goal is to engage with people outside of academia to educate them about the depth of their heritage.

"This isn't a conversation that only black folks should be having. If we look at ourselves as a diverse nation, I think everyone should have these conversations about their history," Kimble said. "We want people to see that their stories are valuable and that you don't have to be this internationally renowned figure to do great things."

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How to Tell 400 Years of Black History in One Book

From 1619 to 2019, this collection of essays, edited by two of the nation’s preeminent scholars, shows the depth and breadth of African American history

History Correspondent

In August of 1619, the English warship White Lion sailed into Hampton Roads, Virginia, where the conjunction of the James, Elizabeth and York rivers meet the Atlantic Ocean. The White Lion ’s captain and crew were privateers, and they had taken captives from a Dutch slave ship. They exchanged, for supplies, more than 20 African people with the leadership and settlers at the Jamestown colony. In 2019 this event, while not the first arrival of Africans or the first incidence of slavery in North America , was widely recognized as inaugurating race-based slavery in the British colonies that would become the United States.

That 400th anniversary is the occasion for a unique collaboration: Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 , edited by historians Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain. Kendi and Blain brought together 90 black writers—historians, scholars of other fields, journalists, activists and poets—to cover the full sweep and extraordinary diversity of those 400 years of black history. Although its scope is encyclopedic, the book is anything but a dry, dispassionate march through history. It’s elegantly structured in ten 40-year sections composed of eight essays (each covering one theme in a five-year period) and a poem punctuating the section conclusion; Kendi calls Four Hundred Souls “a chorus.”

The book opens with an essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist behind the New York Times ’ 1619 Project , on the years 1619-1624, and closes with an entry from Black Lives Matter co-creator Alicia Garza writing about 2014-19, when the movement rose to the forefront of American politics. The depth and breadth of the material astounds, between fresh voices, such as historisn Mary Hicks writing about the Middle Passage for 1694-1699, and internationally renowned scholars, such as Annette Gordon-Reed writing about Sally Hemings for 1789-94. Prominent journalists include, in addition to Hannah-Jones, The Atlantic ’s Adam Serwer on Frederick Douglass (1859-64) and New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie on the Civil War (1864-69). The powerful poems resonate sharply with the essays, Chet’la Sebree’s verses in “And the Record Repeats” about the experiences of young black women, for example, and Salamishah M. Tillet’s account of Anita Hill’s testimony in the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“We are,” Kendi writes in the introduction collectively of black Americans, “reconstructing ourselves in this book.” The book itself, Blain writes in the conclusion, is “a testament to how much we have overcome, and how we have managed to do it together, despite our differences and diverse perspectives.” In an interview, Blain talked about how the project and the book’s distinctive structure developed, and how the editors imagine it will fit into the canon of black history and thought. A condensed and edited version of her conversation with Smithsonian is below.

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled 90 brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span.

How did the Four Hundred Souls book come about?

We started working on the project in 2018 (it actually predates the [publication of] the New York Times 1619 Project.) Ibram reached out to me with the idea that with the 400th year anniversary of the first captive Africans arriving in Jamestown, maybe we should collaborate on a project that would commemorate this particular moment in history, and look at 400 years of African American history by pulling together a diverse set of voices.

The idea was that we'd be able to create something very different than any other book on black history. And as historians, we were thinking, what would historians of the future want? Who are the voices they would want to hear from? We wanted to create something that would actually function as a primary source in another, who knows, 40 years or so—that captures the voices of black writers and thinkers from a wide array of fields, reflecting on both the past but also the present too.

Did you have any models for how you pulled all these voices together?

There are a couple of models in the sense of the most significant, pioneering books in African American history. We thought immediately of W.E.B. De Bois' Black Reconstruction in America in terms of the scope of the work, the depth of the content, and the richness of the ideas. Robin D.G. Kelley's Freedom Dreams is another model, but more recent. Martha Jones' Vanguard , is a book that captures decades right of black women's political activism and the struggle for the vote in a way that I think, does a similar kind of broad, sweeping history. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross's Black Woman's History of the United States is another.

But ours was not a single authored book or even an edited collection of just historians. We didn't want to produce a textbook, or an encyclopedia. We wanted this work to be, as an edited volume, rich enough and big enough to cover 400 years of history in a way that would keep the reader engaged from start to finish, 1619 to 2019. That’s part of the importance of the multiple different genres and different voices we included moving from period to period.

How does Four Hundred Souls reflect the concept of a community history?

We figured that community would show up in different ways in the narrative, but we were really thinking initially, how do we recreate community in putting this book together? One of the earliest analogies that Ibram used was describing this as a choir. I love this—he described the poets as soloists. And then in this choir, you'd have sopranos, you'd have tenors, and you’d have altos. And so the question was: Who do we invite to be in this volume that would capture collectively that spirit of community?

We recognized that we could never fully represent every single field and every single background, but we tried as much as possible. And so even in putting together the book, there was a moment where we said, for example, "Wait a minute, we don't really have a scholar here who would be able to truly grapple with the sort of interconnection between African American History and Native American history." So we thought, is there a scholar, who identifies as African American and Native American and then we reached out to [UCLA historian] Kyle Mays .

So there were moments where we just had to be intentional about making sure that we were having voices that represented as much as possible the diversity of black America. We invited Esther Armah to write about the black immigrant experience because what is black America without immigrants? The heart of black America is that it's not homogenous at all—it's diverse. And we tried to capture that.

We also wanted to make sure that a significant number of the writers were women, largely because we acknowledge that so many of the histories that we teach, that we read, and that so many people cite are written by men. There's still a general tendency to look for male expertise, to acknowledge men as experts, especially in the field of history. Women are often sidelined in these conversations . So we were intentional about that, too, and including someone like Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, we wanted to acknowledge the crucial role that black women are playing in shaping American politics to this very day.

How did historians approach their subjects differently than say, creative writers?

One of the challenges with the book, which turned out to be also an opportunity, was that we were focusing on key historical moments, figures, themes and places in the United States, each within in a very specific five-year period. We actually spent a lot of time mapping out instructions for authors. It wasn't just: “Write a piece for us on this topic.” We said, “Here's what we want and what we don't want. Here's what we expect of you ask these questions as you're writing the essay, make sure you're grappling with these particular themes.”

But they also had to have a bit of freedom, to look backward, and also to look forward. And I think the structure with a bit of freedom worked, it was a pretty nice balance. Some essays the five years just fit like a glove, others a little less so but the writers managed to pull it off.

We also spent a lot of time planning and carefully identifying who would write on certain topics. “Cotton,” which memoirist Kiese Laymon wrote about for 1804-1809, is a perfect example. We realized very early that if we asked a historian to write about cotton, they would be very frustrated with the five-year constraint. But when we asked Kiese, we let him know that we would provide him with books on cotton and slavery for him to take a look at. And then he brought to it his own personal experience, which turned out to be such a powerful narrative. He writes, “When the land is freed, so will be all the cotton and all the money made off the suffering that white folks made cotton bring to Black folks in Mississippi and the entire South.”

And so that's the other element of this too. Even a lot of people wondered how we would have a work of history with so many non-historians. We gave them clear guidance and materials, and they brought incredible talent to the project.

The New York Times ’ 1619 project shares a similar point of origin, the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans to colonial America. What did you make of it when it came out last year?

When the 1619 Project came out, [Ibram and I] were thrilled, because actually, it, in so many ways, complemented our vision for our project. Then we decided we really had to invite Nikole Hannah-Jones to contribute. We weren't sure who we would ask for that first essay, but then we were like, "You know what? This makes sense."

I know there are so many different critiques, but for me, what is most valuable about the project is the way that it demonstrates how much, from the very beginning, the ideas and experiences of black people have been sidelined.

This is why we wanted her to write her essay [about the slave ship White Lion .] Even as someone who studied U.S. history, I did not even know about the White Lion for many years. I mean, that's how sad it is…but I could talk about the Mayflower . That was part of the history that I was taught. And so what does that tell us?

We don't talk about 1619 the way that we do 1620. And why is that? Well, let's get to the heart of the matter. Race matters and racism, too, in the way that we even tell our histories. And so we wanted to send that message. And like I said, to have a complementary spirit and vision as the 1619 Project.

When readers have finished going through 400 Souls , where else can they read black scholars writing on black history?

One of the things that the African American Intellectual History Society [Blain is currently president of the organization] is committed to doing is elevating the scholarship and writing of Black scholars as well as a diverse group of scholars who work in the field of Black history, and specifically Black intellectual history.

Black Perspectives [an AAIHS publication] has a broad readership, certainly, we're reaching academics in the fields of history and many other fields. At the same time, a significant percentage of our readers are non-academics. We have activists who read the blog, well known intellectuals and thinkers, and just everyday lay people who are interested in history, who want to learn more about black history and find the content accessible.

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Karin Wulf | | READ MORE

Karin Wulf is the director of the John Carter Brown Library and a historian at Brown University. She was previously the executive director of the Omohundro Institute of American History & Culture and a professor of history at William & Mary.

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As Black History Month comes to a close, Stanford faculty reflect on the crucial contributions of Black Americans that should be studied and celebrated not only during February but also throughout the year. Whether examining the impact of writers like Toni Morrison, Civil War-era abolitionists or present-day political activists in Georgia, scholars from the humanities and social sciences emphasize that the history of Black Americans is essential to understanding our nation and our world.

Below, scholars from the School of Humanities and Sciences talk about how an understanding of Black history has shaped them personally and is integral to their research and work.

Hakeem Jefferson (Image credit: Harrison Truong)

Hakeem Jefferson Assistant Professor, Political Science

This year’s Black History Month comes on the heels of a white supremacist insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. With this tragic event in mind, I am reminded that Black people have long served as the conscience of nations around the world in moments of crisis. I am reminded of brave abolitionists and freedom fighters and artists and everyday people who, with everything to lose, including life itself, have stood as vanguards and safekeepers of our democracy. And as a political scientist whose work tries to highlight the diversity and complexity of Black politics, I am reminded of Black activists and organizers in places like Georgia and Texas and Arizona who are working right now to make real the promise of democracy not just for Black people but also for all of us.

As a community of scholars, we have an opportunity to join these efforts, and this Black History Month offers us another opportunity to recommit ourselves to the cause of democracy – a cause Black people in this country have been advancing for generations and continue to advance today. The real question is whether we have the courage to stand with them.

Tomás Jiménez (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Tomás Jiménez Associate Professor, Sociology

Black history is American history. At each step in our nation’s development, Black Americans have led the call and shown by example how to live out the promise in our founding documents. Living up to that promise is an ongoing project. Taking up the challenge of that project requires reckoning with the ways that institutions and individuals have subjugated Black Americans through direct action, inaction or both. It also requires honoring the contributions of Black Americans to every aspect of American life, from politics and science, to art and spirituality.

It is well worth honoring the widely known individuals who have made those contributions. But we should also lift up individuals for whom there will never be a monument or plaque, but who have worked in every facet of American life to make our country a better place. They too made and continue to make Black history; to make American history.

Paula M. L. Moya (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Paula M. L. Moya Danily C. and Laura Louise Bell Professor in the Humanities Professor, English

I study literature written by people of African descent not just for its wisdom, profundity, sadness and humor, but also because not to do so would leave me ignorant of a crucial history that has contributed fundamentally to making our nation what it is.

Toni Morrison is, for me and so many others, a beacon of wisdom and truth. Her writings, along with those of Frantz Fanon, Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara and James Baldwin (among others), have taught me important lessons about how I, as a human being and also as a woman of color, can live with generosity in this challenging but beautiful world. I treasure their words, I carry them around in my heart and I use them to guide me as I make difficult decisions about who to care for and how to love even those who might not seek to love me back.

Patrick Phillips (Image credit: Marion Ettlinger)

Patrick Phillips Professor, English Interim Director, Creative Writing Program

I see the history of Black Americans as another name for  real American history – for our full history as a nation. And I think more people are finally rejecting a whitewashed version of the past, designed to protect white people from ever facing the monumental crimes of our ancestors, and from ever acknowledging the central role of African Americans in building American prosperity.

I learned this firsthand when I was doing research for a book about my hometown’s long-hidden history of lynching, white-supremacist terror and land theft. It also chronicles the lives of heroic Black residents who, amid crushing injustice, built new lives in post-Emancipation Georgia.

As a white southerner, I see the study of Black history as an urgent corrective to white America’s long tradition of willful ignorance and complicit silence. For as James Baldwin said, “it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.”

Steven O. Roberts (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

Steven O. Roberts Assistant Professor, Psychology

“History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.” —James Baldwin

We, as individuals and as a collective, cannot understand ourselves if we do not understand Black history. And the term itself is important to contextualize. Black history is U.S. history. It is human history. To understand Black history is to know the strength and resilience necessary to affirm one’s humanity, as affirmed by Malcolm and Queen Nzinga and many others. To understand Black history is to feel the heart and depth necessary to sing in soul, as sang by Aretha and Cooke and many others. To understand Black history is to understand what has been and what should be.

There ain’t no history like Black history, and I’m so honored to carry that history with me.

Media Contacts

Joy Leighton, School of Humanities and Sciences: [email protected]

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Black History Month 2022

February is Black History Month in the U.S., and this year's theme is Black Health and Wellness. NPR has compiled a list of stories, music performances, podcasts and other content that chronicles the Black American experience.

Why does Black History Month matter?

Sandhya Dirks

Post racist attack in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. American National Red Cross Photograph Collection. GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images hide caption

Post racist attack in 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. American National Red Cross Photograph Collection.

About 10 years ago, Shukree Hassan Tilghman tried to cancel Black History Month.

Outfitted in a sandwich board with the words "End Black History Month" written across the front, he walked the streets of New York City looking for people to sign his petition to do away with it.

To figure out what Tilghman was up to, it helps to know the other side of his placard read "Black history is American history." It also helps to know he was filming all this for a documentary he made, " More Than A Month ." That movie explored an ongoing question about Black History Month; rather than lifting up African American accomplishment, does it instead maintain a segregated history of America?

Here's the story behind Black History Month — and why it's celebrated in February

"Some people think it was a stunt," says Tilghman. In some ways it was one, but he was also being genuine.

Tilghman says the "core impulse" for his petition to end Black History Month was rooted in his childhood. Both of his parents were school teachers, and those posters of famous Black people that go up on classroom walls and in school hallways every February were in his house year round. When he was little, Black History Month was exciting, but as he kept hearing the same stories of a few sanitized heroes repeated just one month a year, it began to feel insulting. "We were invisible for 11 months out of the year, but now suddenly we were visible in February," he says.

"What did it mean that we had a Black History Month," he started to wonder.

"And what would it mean if we didn't?"

Why did Carter G. Woodson come up with it?

Talk to any group of historians about the meaning of Black History Month and they will all mention the same name: Carter G. Woodson.

"We call him the father of Black history," says Daina Ramey Berry, chair of the history department at The University of Texas, Austin.

In 1926, Woodson founded Negro History Week — which would grow into what we now know as Black History Month .

"The idea was to make resources available for teachers — Black teachers — to celebrate and talk about the contributions that Black people had made to America," says Karsonya Wise Whitehead, the founding executive director for the Karson Institute for Race, Peace, and Social Justice at Loyola University. Whitehead is also a former secretary of ASALH — the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which Woodson founded in 1915.

Woodson picked the week in February marked by the birth of Abraham Lincoln and the chosen birthday of Frederick Douglass, because those days were celebrated in his community. In this way, Woodson built on a Black tradition that was already commemorating the past.

"He also understood that for Black students, to see themselves beyond their current situation, they had to be able to learn about the contributions that their ancestors had made to this country," Whitehead says.

A picture of U.S. democracy in action: Black people at work, rest and play

The historical context of the moment is also key, according to Berry. "African Americans were, 50 or so years outside of slavery and trying to figure out their space in the United States," she says.

That space was being violently demarcated by white supremacy. "We were experiencing segregation, lynchings, mass murders and massacres," says Berry. A few years before was 1919's so-called Red Summer , when white mobs attacked Black neighborhoods and cities. Then in 1921 came the Tulsa race massacre .

Alongside white supremacist violence was an attempt to whitewash U.S. history, excluding both the contributions and the realities of Black people. This was the period when statues of confederate soldiers were erected and the lost cause myth — the lie that the Civil War was about preserving a genteel way of life and that slaves were well treated — was becoming a dominant narrative. "Not just in the South," says Hasan Kwame Jeffries, a professor of history at The Ohio State University.

"A complete revision and distortion of the Civil War, of slavery, of emancipation, of reconstruction was being deeply embedded into the American public education system," he adds.

"Let's talk about Black people"

By the time he was growing up in New York City public schools in the 1980s, Jeffries says Black History Month felt very much like, "let's talk about Black people for a couple of days."

"It was the usual cast of characters," he says. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, a couple of Black inventors — "and then we'd move on."

Says Whitehead, "In school, all of a sudden everything became about Black people, right?"

"So you're putting your Mac and cheese and collard greens into the cafeteria. You're lining the halls with all this Black art that would then get taken down when February ended," she says.

The Picture Show

Reflecting on the power of affirmations for black history month.

Black History Month may sometimes feel tokenizing, but it is still necessary, says Whitehead. "You can go to places," she says rattling off state names, "where if you didn't have Black History Month, there would be no conversations at all."

What we need is an inclusive — and accurate — American history, according to Berry. But American history remains a segregated space. "When you go into American history courses, many of those courses are taught from the perspective of just white Americans and students," Berry says.

The paradox of Black History Month today, Whitehead says, is that we still need it, even if it is not enough. "We want Black history to be American history," she says. "But we understand that without Black History Month, then they will not teach it within the American history curriculum."

Which brings us back to Tilghman, and an answer to his question: What would it mean if we didn't have Black History Month?

"If, but for Black History Month, those stories wouldn't be told," Tilghman says, "then we have a larger problem that is not Black History Month. And that's not actually a reason to keep Black History Month."

"That's a reason to fight for something better than Black History Month."

Parallels to Woodson's Time

There have been efforts in some states , and in some curriculums to integrate American history across the year, making slow steps forward. But Hasan Jeffries says the moment we are in right now acutely parallels the time period in which Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week and January 6th. Once again, at the center of all of this, is a battle over who gets to control history.

"We see that same pushback now with this divisive subjects and divisive issues stuff," Jeffries says, referring to " divisive topics" laws in Republican-led states that ban acknowledging that America was founded on racist principles.

"If we can just trot out Rosa Parks sitting on a bus and then put her back on the bus and not talk about it, that's fine," says Jeffries. "But we don't want to talk about the society as a whole that supported and embraced Jim Crow. And the way in which inequality is literally written into the U.S. constitution."

Artwork from the Black Lives Matter memorial has a new home: the Library of Congress

Integrating Black history into American history isn't some simple act of inclusion, Jeffries says. You can't just insert Black people who invented things, or made notable contributions, into a timeline, he says.

"You start having to question what you assume to be basic truths about the American experience, the myth of perpetual progress and American exceptionalism — all that crumbles," Jeffries says.

But change is coming, he notes.

The undergraduates Jeffries teaches don't necessarily begin with a full grasp of U.S. history, but many are now showing up in his class precisely because they feel they haven't been told the whole story.

"They've been seeing all this happen over the last four or five years — the rise of racism, white supremacy and hate," he says of some of his white students. "And they're coming to college saying, okay, something ain't right."

Feeding the appetite for robust history

That hunger for Black history, for robust American history, is something high school teacher Ernest Crim III has tapped into on social media. His TikTok videos about Black figures in history have gone viral, racking up tens of thousands of views. One of those videos was about Carter G. Woodson , and the origins of Black History Month.

Crim is a Black teacher teaching Black, Latino and white students in a Chicago suburb, which means in a lot of key ways he is similar to the teachers Woodson created Negro history week to serve. "Woodson created Negro History Week with a particular purpose," Crim says. "So that we could come together and discuss what we've been doing all year round, not to celebrate it for one week, which eventually became a month."

Which is why in Crim's history classroom, February isn't the only time they talk about people of color. "In every unit of study I look for examples of what Black people and Latino people were doing at that time," he says.

"We'll get to the civil rights unit in my class, probably in March," he says. "They going to think it's February, with how much we're talking about Black people."

For Crim, in the teaching of history, separate is not equal.

Abraham Galloway is the Black figure from the Civil War you should know about

Illinois, where he teaches, does not have a divisive topics law, but even without an outright ban, he says a lot of his students aren't learning about systemic racism in American history. "Even though every state isn't banning it, there's no need to because most history teachers don't really do it at all," Crim says. You don't need to ban something that is not really taught in the first place.

Teaching history, teaching integrated honest history, can be transformative, Crim says. "It's about changing your thoughts and that can change your entire generation. That can change your family. That could change, just the trajectory of your entire life," he says.

"The story that we as Americans tell about who we were, that story tells us who we are," says Shukree Tilghman.

Tilghman's campaign to end Black History Month left him with a renewed respect for the rich history of the month itself. In the past few years it may seem like history has resurfaced as a battleground of American identity, but it's always been that way. "History is about power," Tilghman says, "and who has the power to tell the story."

Black History Month, at its best, has the ability to crack open the door to a kind of narrative reparations, says Hasan Jeffries. "I mean, that's part of the power of Black History Month. It holds America accountable for the narrative that it tells about the past."

Correction Feb. 27, 2022

A previous version of this story misspelled Daina Ramey Berry's name as Diana Ramey Berry.

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Black History Month

By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 29, 2024 | Original: January 14, 2010

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.

Origins of Black History Month

The story of Black History Month begins in 1915, half a century after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

That September, the Harvard-trained historian 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.

Known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the group sponsored a national Negro History week in 1926, choosing the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass . The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures.

In the decades that followed, mayors of cities across the country began issuing yearly proclamations recognizing "Negro History Week." By the late 1960s, thanks in part to the civil rights movement and a growing awareness of Black identity, "Negro History Week" had evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses.

President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

Today, Black History Month is a time to honor the contributions and legacy of African Americans across U.S. history and society—from activists and civil rights pioneers such as Harriet Tubman , Sojourner Truth ,  Marcus Garvey ,  Martin Luther King Jr. ,  Malcolm X and Rosa Parks to leaders in industry, politics, science, culture and more. 

Did you know? The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909, the centennial anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

Black History Month 2024 Theme

Since 1976, every American president has designated February as Black History Month and endorsed a specific theme.

The Black History Month 2024 theme, “ African Americans and the Arts ,” explores the key influence African Americans have had in the fields of "visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression."

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Why Black History Matters Today: A Historian’s Perspective

By Andy Zunz ’14 | February 5, 2020

“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history,” wrote Carter G. Woodson, who’s known as the father of black history. In 1926, Woodson created Negro History Week, a predecessor of Black History Month.

With its  Africana Studies minor  and several other courses and programs that focus on teaching and preserving black history, UCF’s  College of Arts and Humanities  is helping students stay connected with the past.

We caught up with three young alumni to discuss why they pursued this line of work, and why everyone should be invested in the study of black history.

Ariel Collier ’19  is the program coordinator for the Florida Prison Education Project at UCF, where she helps provide higher-education opportunities for those who are incarcerated by teaching at local prisons.  Collier also works to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline by spreading awareness and offering mentoring for students through a partnership with AMIkids.

Porsha Dossie ’14 ’18MA  is a staff historian at the National Park Service in the Office of the Chief Historian, where she helps manage the African American Civil Rights Network. Dossie works to preserve civil rights movement sites through digitization, public programming and more traditional historic preservation efforts.

Brandon Nightingale ’16 ’19MA  is the assistant archivist at Bethune-Cookman University — a historically black university in Daytona Beach, Florida — where he assists with research on the university and its founder, Mary McLeod Bethune.

How does your work tie into black history and impact people of color today?

Collier:  People of color are mostly impacted by the systems we are working to reconstruct (at FPEP). In Florida, among male incarcerated citizens, 49 percent were black non-Hispanics, 38 percent were white non-Hispanics, 13 percent were Hispanic, and under 1 percent were other non-Hispanics. Florida holds more youth in adult jails and prisons than any other state. Florida is one of only three states that give prosecutors the sole, unappealable discretion to prosecute juveniles as adults. The Tough on Crime philosophy has led to over-incarceration; zero-tolerance policies have led to a large push of students of color out of school and into the criminal and juvenile justice system.

Dossie:  This work is impactful because historic preservation unfortunately has ignored structures with significant ties to black history and culture as they were deemed insignificant decades ago when the original criteria that determined how sites are selected and preserved in the National Register of Historic Places was created. This is starting to change, and programs like the African American Civil Rights Network are helping to preserve the physical record of black history and promote these historical resources so they are more accessible to the public.

Nightingale:  What I do now in this archive — there’s so much in there. Right now, I’m cleaning it up, identify everything that’s in there and moving forward. I want to see how we can get it to the public, through digitization and social media.

Why is it important for young people today to study and learn this history?

Collier : “Know yourself, know you worth.” –Drake

Dossie:  It’s important because we should have a fuller, more accurate understanding of our human history, and that isn’t possible without knowing or understanding black history. History as a discipline is making sense of the past to understand how the present comes to be, and when we talk especially about social problems, race relations and structural inequality, those conversations must be informed by the study of history, particularly black history.

Nightingale:  It’s vital for everyone living in America and around the world to know where you come from and what was here before you. Everybody is so caught up in technology, but it’s history that we have to keep reminding ourselves of so we don’t repeat it. I know that’s cliché, but it’s so true. Not everyone has to be a historian, but it doesn’t take much to find the history of your family or your community or where you work. History, in general, is an important concept for all human beings.

What does Black History Month mean to you?

Collier:  Black History Month means more people are paying attention to the things I pay attention to 365 days of the year. It’s great, it’s cute, I support it — but there is a lot more our society could be doing to support people of color year-round.

Dossie:  For me, Black History Month is about commemoration. The reason we have annual observation months like Black History Month or Hispanic Heritage Month is because these communities have often been left out of mainstream narratives in the past. For much of our nation’s history, this was purposeful.

When Carter G. Woodson first created what was then called Negro History Week in 1926, black history was not actively taught in most schools or mainstream cultural institutions. Woodson viewed it as a vehicle for not just commemoration, but to enact transformative change. He believed that if children, especially Black children, were more familiar with their history they would have a deeper sense of pride and understanding of the important role black people have played in United States history since its formation.

Today, nearly 100 years later, Black History Month is still relevant because despite the profound changes I’ve seen even in my lifetime, the struggle for racial equality continues; and Black History Month reminds us of how far we come, but how far we still have to go.

Nightingale:  It was Black History Month during my sophomore year when I went into the book store — they did a good job of advertising for Black History Month — and I picked up the autobiography of Malcolm X. That was my first glance into what I was studying with history. I saw a lot of similarities between me and Malcolm, and that was the book that really drew me in.

I grew up frustrated with (Black History Month), because there’s just one month dedicated to it. But, if it wasn’t for that I probably would not have come across that Malcolm X book as a young guy in college. More so, it’s a reminder of the accomplishments that black Americans have made in history. We need those reminders because there could be other people like me — I was on an engineering track. I had no intention of doing scholarly work; I was all numbers. That display for Black History Month drew my attention. If it wasn’t for that, I may not be where I am today.

What motivated you to pursue the study of black history?

Collier:  My first class within the minor was Documenting Africana Heritage and Life with the late professor Tony Major during the summer before my junior year, which I took to fulfill a requirement for my major in Visual Arts and Emerging Media Management . His class opened my eyes to so much basic history that I had never learned in my early education. I decided to make it officially my minor after that summer because I felt like I was learning more about myself every class period.

Dossie:  My interest in black history started early (I learned to read when I was 3). My parents encouraged my interest in reading by giving me books on Harriet Tubman, Coretta Scott King and Bessie Coleman, to name a few. As I got older, I consumed more books and media about historical figures and movements that interested me. I decided senior year of high school that I wanted to study black history, particularly black women’s history, so I became a history major when I enrolled at UCF.

Nightingale:  I got to UCF in 2012, and I started out in electrical engineering . I was doing OK in the classes, but it just wasn’t for me. I took a class with Dr. (James) Clark, and I was hooked after his history class. The class was speaking to me. I took more history courses, and I was started to read more toward the end of my undergrad career, but I had the opportunity to really dig down deep in grad school in the public history program. Also, professor Luis Martínez-Fernández pulled me to the side and showed me what you can really do with history in museums. He took me to one of my first museums, the Orange County Regional History Center in downtown Orlando. He took me under his wing, and that’s where it all started with me.

These UCF alumni are making a difference in the world every day. You can impact the next generation of Knights studying history with a gift to the College of Arts and Humanities at the link below.

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For a decade, UCF-based nonprofit Limbitless Solutions has transformed kids’ lives through bionic limbs. 

The Important Political History of Black History Month

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Many accept Black History Month as a special time of year, yet few recognize the role African American teachers played in establishing and popularizing this tradition during Jim Crow. Originally founded in 1926 as Negro History Week by the famed educator and groundbreaking historian Carter G. Woodson, Black History Month is the product of Black teachers’ long-standing intellectual and political struggles.

As a longtime public school teacher, Woodson witnessed white school leaders resist efforts to meaningfully transform curriculum and school policies, and while earning his doctorate from Harvard University, between 1908 and 1912, he learned how distortions about Black life were constructed at the highest levels of education. Recognizing these barriers, he decided to work from outside the classroom to partner with teachers. This began with Woodson founding the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915.

Woodson was particularly interested in using Negro History Week to infuse students’ learning with critical knowledge about racial domination as well as the long traditions of Black resistance and achievement. Negro History Week quickly became a cultural norm in Black segregated schools. According to surveys conducted by Black educator and journalist Thomas L. Dabney in 1934, it was celebrated in more than 80 percent of those high schools by the mid-1930s.

The creation of Negro History Week did not occur in a vacuum. It reflected a continuum of consciousness among Black educators, channeling an intellectual and political tradition long practiced in the private spaces of their classrooms. This class of teachers placed the needs of their students above protocols imposed by white school leaders.

This tradition stretched back as early as 1864, when Black abolitionist Charlotte Forten taught recently freed children in South Carolina about Toussaint L’Ouverture and the Haitian Revolution. Noticing the absence of such narratives in textbooks and materials supplied by white missionaries, Forten wrote that Black children “should know what one of their own color had done for his race.”

A decade before establishing Negro History Week, Woodson and his colleagues at the M Street School in Washington planned professional-development events for Black teachers, and they did so independent of the school district. These workshops during the 1915-16 academic year extended from previous strategies they employed to work around the official school curriculum. Woodson facilitated a history and civics workshop, which took place just after he published the inaugural issue of the Journal of Negro History—the first academic publication of its kind and one that Woodson founded and edited using the small salary he earned from teaching history, English, and French at the M Street School. W.E.B. Du Bois—who had visited the school in previous years at the invitation of Anna Julia Cooper, the school’s principal at the time and the author of A Voice from the South: By A Black Woman from the South —led workshops on Black history for teachers.

These educators insisted on the importance of providing students with cultural armor to repudiate the racial myths reflected in the nation’s laws, social policies, and American curriculum.

Such examples reflect a robust intellectual culture among Black schoolteachers. What’s more, these educators insisted on the importance of providing students with cultural armor to repudiate the racial myths reflected in the nation’s laws, social policies, and American curriculum.

But teaching about Black life and culture was not just about songs, poems, and a few good stories of successful Black people. Woodson emphasized the direct relationship between curricular content and the violent lived experiences of Black people in the world. When reflecting on Negro History Week in 1926, he wrote the following in the Journal of Negro History: “A Negro is passed on the street and is shoved off in the mud; he complains or strikes back and is lynched as a desperado who attacked a gentleman. And what if he is handicapped, segregated, or lynched? According to our education and practice, if you kill one of the group, the world goes on just as well or better; for the Negro is nothing, has never been anything, and never will be anything but a menace to civilization.”

Woodson argued that the official school curriculum cultivated anti-Blackness as a social competence, and its system of representation reflected and reproduced social hierarchies that plagued human society. Based on the American curriculum, Blackness and Black people represented the antithesis of human civilization and achievement. Thus, Negro History Week emerged from Black teachers’ political clarity about the ideological foundations of American schooling and their desire to disrupt such foundations.

The occasion arrived annually in February, yet teachers should not wait until February to study Black life and culture. Woodson emphasized this point again and again. “Some teachers and their students have misunderstood the celebration of Negro History Week,” Woodson explained in the February 1938 Negro History Bulletin. He observed how some schools “work up enthusiasm during these few days, stage a popular play, present an orator of the day, or render exercises of a literary order; but they forget the Negro thereafter throughout the year. To proceed in such fashion may do as much harm as good.”

At its best, Negro History Week dramatized and expressed an educational vision that shaped learning year-round. This caution offered in 1938 might also be applied to our 21 st -century present.

As we reflect on the importance of Black History Month in 2021—a time of unprecedented challenges—we might draw inspiration from the robust intellectual and political tradition of Black teachers from the past. The greatest among them were more than ordinary practitioners. They were scholars of the practice. We have Black History Month because of their long tradition of study and struggle.

A version of this article appeared in the February 03, 2021 edition of Education Week as The History of Black History Month

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Celebrating Black History With The New York Times

Recent and archival articles, essays, photographs, videos, infographics, writing prompts, lesson plans and more.

By The Learning Network

Below, a collection of Times articles, essays, photographs, videos, infographics and more that can help bring the wealth of Black history and culture into your classroom.

We begin with links to historic Times front pages, from the Dred Scott decision of 1857 through the civil rights movement and on to the election of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be elected vice president of the United States, and the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Below that, you’ll find a selection of more recent pieces from across Times sections on Black history and contemporary culture, including a section featuring the “Black History, Continued” series and “The 1619 Project.” Finally, we list some of our own recent related Learning Network lesson plans and writing prompts in the hopes that they inspire further reading, writing and discussion.

Our list is long, yes, but we also know it’s not nearly complete. Are there important pieces about Black history that you teach with? Please let us know in the comments.

Here’s what you'll find below:

Historic headlines.

• Special New York Times Projects
• Selected Recent Reporting and Multimedia
• Learning Network Lessons, Writing Prompts and Films

Archival articles that document key moments in Black history, and give us a glimpse into the time period in which they unfolded.

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Four Reasons Why We Should Celebrate Black History Month

Posted by jennifer rogers, contributing writer, on jan 30, 2024.

Black History Month  is a time where we recognize the key roles, contributions, and sacrifices of African Americans throughout U.S. history. This month-long observance grew from an initiative by  Carter G. Woodson , a brilliant and highly accomplished son of slaves, to honor the heritage and achievements of African Americans with a week-long celebration in 1926.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford designated February as Black History Month, urging all Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Every U.S. President since then has issued a proclamation in honor of Black History Month. Today, countries all over the world also dedicate a month to celebrating Black History Month.

Here are four reasons we should all, regardless of our own heritage, celebrate Black History Month, along with a few suggestions for how to celebrate:

1. It celebrates diversity.

A celebration goes beyond recognizing the achievements of African Americans. It publicly honors these men and women. It tells their wonderful stories in a way that makes us realize how they have impacted our lives—how our lives would not be the same if these people did not take risks to accomplish amazing things.

One way to explore and celebrate diversity: visit Dallas' own African American Museum , the only one of its kind in the Southwestern Region.

2. It unites us.

Doesn’t it feel good when family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors get together to celebrate us and our achievements? Don’t we feel connected when a group of people from all areas of our lives come together to celebrate a graduation, birthday, or promotion?  These celebrations bring joy when we see people from different walks of life or different parts of the family (that don’t necessarily get along) put aside their differences to celebrate.

This is what celebrating special months or days of the year can do to a larger group of people. When we celebrate the achievements of people groups and cultures from around the world, we are putting aside our opinions and differences to commemorate our shared history and to take joy in each other’s success.  When we celebrate one another, we realize how our differences can actually bring us together rather than tear us apart. 

3. It takes us beyond the history books.

Rather than letting the history books tell us who is important, we can celebrate special months like Black History Month to give us an opportunity to learn about other historical figures that have impacted our lives and world.

• Lewis Howard Latimer and Elijah McCoy

For example, in history class, you probably have studied about Thomas Edison and the light bulb. But do you remember a guy by the name of Lewis Howard Latimer , an accomplished inventor and engineer who helped Edison by creating a longer-lasting filament for the light bulb?

Or what about Elijah McCoy ,  a member of the National Inventor's Hall of Fame who held over 50 patents?  Even today, we acknowledge the impact of his inventions with the phrase, "the Real McCoy," which means "the real thing."

• Ida Wells and Benjamin Davis, Jr.

And even if we celebrate the figures written into our history books, we can take the time to learn about their lives beyond their names and basic facts. In history, you might have learned about Ida Wells , a prominent activist and journalist. But you might not know that she was an orphan from the age of 14 and took a teaching job to keep her brothers and sisters together. Or that she was forced to flee Memphis to escape a mob of protesters when she started an anti-lynching campaign. You might have heard about Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. , the first African American general in the U.S. Air Force. But you might enjoy learning more about his contributions in World War II and his leadership of the acclaimed Tuskogee Airmen .

Going beyond the textbook paints a different, much richer picture of history. Looking for an easy way to introduce younger ones to the lives of African Americans who have helped shape the world? Check out Vashti Harrison's book series, including Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History  and its companion board book Dream Big, Little One , as well as L ittle Dreamers: Exceptional Men in Black History .

4. It helps us understand the importance of our stories.

For a closer look at the stories of some notable African Americans, check out two free digital streaming experiences from The Children's Education Program of Performing Arts Fort Worth at Bass Performance Hall: Thurgood Marshall, Civil Rights Champion and (for some local flair)  Legends and Legacies: Commentaries on Fort Worth's African American History . 

However we choose to observe Black History Month, we can allow the four reasons above to guide our celebration of diversity all year round.

At Chase Oaks, “Our unity is beautiful when it reflects the diversity of our world. We are committed to the hard work of bringing different people together for good and demonstrating God’s love in unexpected ways.”   Wonder else defines us as Chase Oaks? Check out our DNA.   

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• Black History Month is a monthlong focus on the Black heroes and pioneers who have shaped our world. • More than that, it spotlights the importance of being an ally to marginalized communities — not for 28 days but for all 365 days in a year. • Read on for thoughts regarding what this month means to our colleagues across Vericast.

February is Black History Month, a time to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions made by Black heroes throughout history. In recent years, it’s also become a time to strengthen allegiance and support with marginalized communities.

Our colleagues at Vericast and our Multicultural Organization Supporting An Inclusive Culture (MOSAIC) Employee Resource Group (ERG) know the significance of Black history. In this blog post, Tonya “TJ” Jones-Dandridge , VP of finance and Vericast MOSAIC ERG co-lead, and Noureen Shaikh , manager of sales enablement and Vericast MOSAIC ERG co-lead, share their thoughts on what Black History Month means to them while featuring perspectives from leaders across the organization .

We would like for people to see Black History Month as a time to spotlight the full spectrum of being Black and living in America, similar to how we take time to celebrate other cultures. We wouldn’t stop an Irish American from celebrating St. Patrick’s Day or a Christian from celebrating Christmas. Those cultures are part of who they — and we — are, and every year we take time to celebrate part of our ancestral history.

Black History Month is that time for African Americans to acknowledge key figures from our past and present. It’s an opportunity to spotlight and celebrate the achievements that African Americans have accomplished in this country, despite the history of racism and oppression.

Most of all, it is a time to teach or remind our children of the history lessons they might not learn as part of the everyday school curriculum.

When President Gerald Ford expanded Negro History Week into a full month in 1976, he said the country needed to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Nearly half a century later, this statement still holds true.

Black History Month affords us the chance to challenge what we learned in history, dig deeper, and find out the actual events of the past that were not taught in schools.

It allows us to learn about, celebrate, and honor Black leaders. Many of these leaders endured sacrifice and suffering and must be honored. While those who contributed in the name of science, innovation, and economy were silently ignored, Black History Month celebrates and puts their achievements into the proper context.

Black History Month helps us learn about Black culture. The media tends to showcase the negatives of the Black community, such as poverty, drugs, incarceration, lack of education, etc. These portrayals paint a biased and unfair stereotype in our minds. Black History Month enables us to pause and focus on a more positive narrative of the Black culture. We can look to successful Black business leaders, poets, musicians, scientists, philanthropists, and artists to mitigate the damage caused by the unfair depiction of Black Americans in the media.

When we celebrate Black History Month, we aren’t just celebrating Black history. We are celebrating American history, which belongs to all Americans. By collectively and consciously celebrating Black history, we come together and continue to rewrite the narrative of our diverse nation.

Do you want to build up your foundation of Black history knowledge and observe it year-round? Read more about how to apply those lessons and keep the momentum going in this post . 

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The Spectator

Personal Essays on Black History Month

In 1926, Carter G. Woodson, a Harvard-trained educator, working with the Association for the Study of Negro Life established Black History Week – an opportunity to honor the largely unknown contributions of those of African descent and to celebrate the essence of a history that is integral to the narrative of America as apple pie. Nearly 100 years later (92 to be exact), black history in the United States remains incomplete, inauthentic and lopsided. The dominant narrative reinforces negative stereotypes and assumptions that devalue black and brown bodies in America. We are familiar with the common threads – school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, educational achievement gaps to name a few. We are less familiar with (or perhaps less willing to acknowledge) the systemic and structural forces that sustain and lock in advantage; a self-reinforcing system that has been operating for hundreds of years. Moreover, often we recycle our praise for those commonly-known historical figures in black history; leaving a vast delta of information about the unique contributions of black people across disciplines and genres hidden, unacknowledged or forgotten. As an African American woman living in this moment, the promise and peril of what civil rights leaders in the 1950s and 1960s referred to as “beloved community,” seems ever present. It is hard to remain hopeful in the midst of such palpable divisiveness, polarizing forces, coarse language and deeds that are antithetical to creating a society that is inclusive, loving and just. Those who fought, sacrificed, and died deserve our reverence and gratitude, for sure. Significantly, however, to honor the legacy of their contributions demands not only celebratory moments, but also recommitting ourselves to action toward building beloved community. Remembering the past is important to create pathways toward greater understanding, productive dialogue, cross-cultural trust and reconciliation. Discovering those core pieces of American history is vital to building these bridges. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently published a study reflecting our failure as a nation to adequately educate about the difficult and complex history of American slavery; treating slavery as an event rather than integral part of who we are as a country. We must honestly confront our shared history and its relationship to contemporary racial gaps and inequities. Any discussion toward building beloved community cannot take place without confronting the difficult history of American slavery because this history continues to shape our conceptions of race, who belongs and fairness. With Black History Month upon us, I’m mindful of the students, scholars, activists and ordinary citizens who found the courage to remain determined and engaged in the midst of great challenges, vulnerability and danger in order to demand basic human dignity and racial justice. In fact, it was college students and other young people who declared Black History as a month-long exploration rather than a week. Confining black history to a week or month is not the point. The heart of the matter for me is that context matters. This moment signifies our shared history—black history matters for all of us—the story of how America developed, prospered and created an imperfect union, one that continues to bear fruit in rich and complex ways. It’s about educating ourselves and discovering those foundational pieces and hard truths of American history like the enslavement of free people of African descent, genocidal acts like lynching, segregation and the discrimination of Jim Crow, along with the numerous contributions made by black people to the fabric of American life and culture, as well as its infrastructure and industrial capacity. We remember so others will not forget; to affirm and to build a better world. We cannot change that which we do not know and understand or for which we hold little or no respect and curiosity. This month and beyond, I will acknowledge with pride those whose efforts continue to inspire and make history—from the freedom fighters of the Civil Rights Movement (too numerous to name), the vibrancy of the Harlem Renaissance, Pauli Murray, Audre Lorde; to more contemporary history makers including Black Lives Matter, Colin Kaepernick, Ana Duvernay, Shonda Rhimes, Beyoncé, authors like Ibram Kendi and Isabel Wilkerson, Black Panther – the movie, to the official portraits of former President Obama and Michelle Obama, both created by black artists whose subjects and works will hang in the National Gallery for all time. Additionally, as CDO, I will continue to build our capacity to embed and infuse diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the strategic priorities of the institution and to cultivate more productive ways of engaging across differences. The goal is that SU is a place where we harness the power of our differences, embrace creative tension and grow together. I remain hopeful in the midst of challenging times because of the courageous citizens on this campus and beyond who are doing their part to build a more just and humane society—toward beloved community. – Natasha Martin Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion

I’m half Black, half Cuban. Growing up my father never spoke Spanish in the house and I never asked why. My father was a man that never saw color, he always believed you should “trust the soul of a man rather than the look of him.” (Remember the Titans–Coach Yoast). In Petersburg, Va., where I was born and raised, my father became the first Negro in the 60’s to drive a city bus. At the time this was unheard of. He battled his way through racism, and other challenges of negative behavior because he was the only black bus driver for Petersburg Va. Transit Co. (see cover photo). I can remember my mother telling me a story about father’s first week at work. She described it as “hell pure”. Your father pulls up and says, “good morning everyone.” The white passengers were furious and they would not board the bus. So, a group of blacks walked pass the group of white passengers and boarded the bus, deposited their fare and said, “good morning.” After a few minutes the white passengers began to board the bus. They shouted racial slurs, they spit on my father and other passengers and said “hey nigger whose bus did you steal?” as they walked passed him. On top of that, they didn’t pay their fare. When all the passengers got seated, my father put the bus in park and removed his seat belt and stood up. He wasn’t a small man. He stood tall at a height of 6ft 5inches. He began to speak to all the passengers on the bus. This is what he said, “I’m the bus driver and this my route, but if I’m the driver of this bus, you will not disrespect me, put your hands on me or spit on me. Lastly if you have a problem with what I said or I have offended you, you can just remove yourself from my bus.” He returned to his seat, fastened his seat belt, and put the bus in gear and started driving toward Downtown Petersburg. During the bus ride the atmosphere on the bus was so silent you could hear a pin drop. After about a 50-minute bus ride, the bus arrives in Downtown Petersburg. The bus comes to a stop and my father opens the door and all passengers began to exit. As white passengers walked past my father to exit the bus, they deposited their fare and shook my fathers hand and apologized to him and the last white passenger asked if they would we him see later that day, to which my father responded, “yes you will and I will get you home safe to your family.” Black History Month, to me, means a celebration of knowledge. It’s a reflection of the past, present and future in African American Culture. It’s a reminder of all the positive and innovative things that have come from our culture and how it made a huge impact on future generations. It is a time for everyone to experience culture and the roots of many things that have evolved from those of African American decent. Also it’s a time to inform everyone who may not be exposed to African American History the rest of the year. Let’s all take the time to remember the hardships and struggle, but it doesn’t stop there. It’s a remembrance of what we strive for and how the ones before us have paved a way for the things we have today. – Ricco Bland Public Safety Officer

My grandmother was the most influential person in my life until her death in 1997. Today, I draw inspiration both from her memory and the legacy of love and compassion she left behind. I experienced a safe, secure, loving childhood that occurred at the valuable intersection of two circumstances; the youth of my parents and the love of my grandmother. I was positioned to witness the broad range of painful human experiences and given a unique set of assets and blessings that allowed me the ability to develop and grow my understanding of the world I inhabit. Early in my upbringing, my grandmother introduced me to the writings of W.E.B. DuBois. And while I was not fully capable on my own of making sense of his writings as a youngster, the messages of his experiences spoke truth to my reality as I began to mature and grow in my understanding of the world around me. His words of the early 1900s still ring true for me today and underscore the significance of Black History Month in my life so I share them with you in that spirit. After the Egyptian and the Indian, the Greek and the Roman, the Teuton and the Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. (DuBois, 1903) Accordingly, Black History Month is less a month and more a movement that remains alive in me with each breath I take. It is represented in my family who gave me voice and liberated me from the poor rural up bringing that shackled so many before and after me. Black History Month is about deliverance, freedom, reframing experiences, renaming reality and retelling the truth. H. Alexander Welcome (2004) asserted: The life histories of Whites are used as the standard against which Blacks are encouraged to strive. The employment of this ontology fallaciously limits the range of Black agency, producing deceitful narratives where the navigation of the social environment by Blacks is dictated by either a passive response to, or a passive adoption of, White scripts. The utilization of whiteness to determine and/or evaluate blackness begins when whiteness and White life histories come to represent what is “right.” (p. 61) Black History is about transformation, consciousness, definition, and debunking myths and lies. It is represented in the narratives and oral histories of my ancestors told to me by my grandparents and parents and to be shared forward with my own children and the generations to come. It is about an increased understanding of the contributions of Black people throughout our muddled history. It is ultimately about truth and reconciliation. – Alvin Sturdivant Vice President, Student Development

Picture Detroit, Michigan in the 1970’s and you can begin to imagine my childhood. By the time I was ten years old, the mayor of Detroit was a black man, Coleman Young. The superintendent of public schools, Arthur Jefferson, was also a black man. I was blessed to grow up in times permeated by James Brown (“I’m black and I’m proud), the Black Panthers, dashikis, afro hair, and going every Sunday to Triedstone Baptist Church and later Detroit’s Afro-American Mission. In my memory, I hear people reminding me that the history of my race was something of which to be proud. Calendars my parents received from black businesses in town served as black history storybooks. (I honestly can’t remember if they were sent by funeral homes or insurance agencies.) Every year, we received a new calendar depicting black people succeeding in various fields such as Dorie Miller, a Navy gunner killed at Pearl Harbor and honored for his bravery, and Ida B. Wells, the journalist and sociologist who brought lynching into the national consciousness. Black history was not confined to a month at my public school. Yet, February afforded an opportunity for heightened reflections on what it meant to be black in America. Today, February still feels like a time to remember, to catch hold of the past and allow it to inspire me in the present. I recently joked with a friend that I should write a book titled “The Re-education of this Negro” as I have struggled with the times – police brutality against young black men and women, regular reminders of mass incarceration and injustice under the law. At times, the bleakness of the current day overwhelms me. I wish I could say that seeing all of the wrongs propels me toward solutions but at times I feel immobilized by the weight of racism. In contrast, it seems to me that Dr. Woodson called black people to have a knowledge of history because an understanding of the accomplishments of one’s forbears was essential to inspiration, aspiration, and justice. Increasingly, as I struggle with this present darkness I feel the need to draw on the dreams and victories of those who came before. I want to remember how they maintained faith and laughter as well as how tears and sorrow drove them forward. What’s black history month to me? It is both a call and a light. Black history month is the call of many voices saying “Remember. Press on.” Black history month is a light in the darkness that shows a way forward. Black history is about more than a month but this month reminds me to pause and locate myself within history. – Holly Slay Ferraro Associate Professor, Management

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Black Women Have Written History for over a Century

Barriers of racism and sexism slowed them down, but academia wasn’t their only venue.

Black History Month is packed with reflections of figures from the past whose names have sometimes been long buried or ignored. But what about the historians who unearthed and preserved their stories to begin with? Many of them were women , writes Pero Gaglo Dagbovie—and they made critically important contributions to the field of history itself.

Dagbovie explores the work of Black women historians between 1890 and the mid-1950s. It was a time of dramatic change for Black Americans, who pushed forward into the academy and the professions despite social and financial barriers. Men saw opportunities before women, who were socialized to seek professional roles defined as feminine while they also faced the roadblock of racism. As a result, many Black women historians were unable to break into academia.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t find ways to hone their education and expertise. From self-taught historians to Progressive-era novelists to those who at last did receive professional training and doctorates, Dagbovie characterizes history’s Black women as dynamic and driven.

Among them were Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Pauline E. Hopkins, who wrote novels during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Harper’s Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted , plumbed the history of slavery and Reconstruction, challenging notions of enslaved people as monolithic or passive. Her cultured, socially engaged heroine Iola helped “dictate a program” for middle-class Black women, implying their importance and their ability to map a future for their race. Hopkins also reenvisioned Black history through novels aimed at uplifting Black women.

Other Black women historians refined their craft without the benefit of a formal education. They scoured history for important Black women, traced family histories, and published pamphlets and books that attempted to piece together a history of Black people in America. Self-educated historians like Leila Amos Pendleton, Laura Eliza Wilkes, and Elizabeth Lindsay Davis wrote monographs in an attempt to correct the record, inspire social reform, and engender Black pride.

When it came to formal graduate education, Black women trailed behind their male counterparts by at least thirty years. The first Black woman historian to receive a Ph.D. was Anna Julia Cooper, who earned her doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1925. Though her work was little known during her day, it laid the foundation for a new generation of women scholars. Marion Thompson Wright earned her Ph.D. in history in 1940, the first Black woman in America to do so, and was followed by a flood others.

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Most of these women focused on Black history—a reflection of both the barriers they faced and their passionate desire to document and interpret the history of their people. For Dagbovie, their stories embody “intellectual struggle, self-definition, and empowerment.” Though many of these early historians lacked the official recognition of their discipline, they declared themselves historians nonetheless, creating “distinguishable and valuable niches for themselves among the chroniclers of the American past.” Yet white people, and men, still dominate the historical profession—a reflection of the ingrained biases of academia and the historical profession as a whole.

As Dagbovie writes, Black women should be considered an “essential component” of Black history and its pursuit. If not for the labors of historians like Dagbovie, their stories might continue to be downplayed or even forgotten.

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Home — Essay Samples — History — African American History — Why Is Black History Month Important: My Views

Why is Black History Month Important: My Views

• Categories: African American African American History

About this sample

Words: 877 |

Updated: 22 November, 2023

Words: 877 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Adams, M. S. (2017). Celebrating black history month: Linking black heroes to academic success. Journal of African American Studies , 21(4), 633-643.
• Blackburn, J. M., & Smith, R. L. (2018). Recognizing black lives: The relevance of black history month in counseling. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 46(2), 98-113.
• Deyhle, D., & Margonis, F. (2001). Multicultural education, critical race theory , and the "Postmodern Turn" in education. Review of Research in Education, 25(1), 195-246.
• Garvey, G., & White, S. (2015). Black history month: The experiences and opinions of young people in two London boroughs. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19(3), 326-340.
• Glenn, E. N. (2015). Black History Month: Democratizing history. In L. H. Collins Jr. (Ed.), Exploring Race and Ethnicity: Contemporary Readings (pp. 60-65). Routledge.
• Karenga, M. (2017). Black history month: Its creation and legacy. Journal of Pan African Studies, 10(2), 155-176.
• La Garett, J. (2016). Black history is not just a month: A qualitative exploration of black history education throughout the year. Journal of African American Studies, 20(2), 213-226.
• Landa, M. (2012). The purpose of black history month. Academic Questions, 25(1), 58-63.
• Thomas, G. M. (1986). Black History Month: A chance to learn. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, (1), 108-109.
• Van De Mieroop, D. (2016). Black history month: (Re)membering the past. South African Journal of Psychology, 46(3), 363-375.

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Craig Melvin on teaching his biracial children the importance of Black history

At one point during the pandemic, my son said about his sister: “Well, Sibby is white like Mommy, and I’m brown like Daddy.” All four of us were there, and I thought to myself: “We should probably use this as a teachable moment.” We explained that they are biracial. We explained that Mommy is white, and Daddy is Black, which means they are both. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter a whole lot, because we’re human beings, and that’s what is most important.  

Previously, my wife, Lindsay , and I were both a bit Pollyanna about how far we had come as a country and as a society — until the murder of George Floyd in 2020 . His murder and the resulting protests and discussions happening across the world forced us to have some really honest conversations about how we were going to talk to our children about matters of race. My son is seven; my daughter is five. They’re still a bit young to have those serious conversations , but we know that we’ll have to have them eventually. 

Two weeks ago, we were giving my son a bath when he started singing a song. It starts as a hum, and then he sang. I said, “Oh, is that ‘We Shall Overcome’?” He said, “Yeah, how do you know that song?” I said, “Well, that was the anthem during the civil rights movement.” 

He had learned the song in music class and — here’s the thing I was proud of — it was before Black History Month. They taught the song to the entire class. For perspective, my son is one of two brown faces in the class. Black history must be incorporated into our history in a better way throughout the year. I do worry that there are people sometimes who hide behind Black History Month and use that as an excuse to not incorporate our history throughout the course of the year. 

Black History Month is about making sure that the story of our country is complete.

Craig Melvin

To be clear, I firmly believe that we still need a month devoted to Black history in this country, because there are clearly people who are unaware of our history. There are movements in our country that are devoted to whitewashing history, and nothing good comes from that. It’s not about promoting white guilt; what it’s about — or what it should be about — is making sure that the story of our country is complete. And that hasn’t always been the case, because there are parts of our history that are uncomfortable.  

My son and I have spent some time talking about civil rights and the 1960s and the marches for justice and equality, and what America was like two generations ago. I’ve shown him the “I Have a Dream” speech and introduced him to the Letter from Birmingham Jail. At the same time, Lindsay and I want to make sure it’s not just Martin Luther King, Jr. that he learns about, but other leaders of the civil rights movement, too. 

How do you explain to two bright-eyed, multiracial kids that there was a time in this country where people who look like Daddy would have been shackled and working for people who look like Mommy?

One of the things Lindsay and I haven’t yet talked about with our children is slavery. How do you explain to two bright-eyed, multiracial kids who live pretty charmed lives that there was a time in this country where people who look like Daddy would have been shackled and working for people who look like Mommy? How do you confront that ugly truth with biracial children? We’re going to do it, but we’re going to wait until they’re a little older and have a firmer grasp on reality. 

These are the conversations my wife and I have had, but I don’t think they’re conversations a lot of folks think about until they have children. There are a lot of people in this country who are dealing with this same dynamic — a parent of one race and a parent of another race. Recent Census data shows that the multiracial population in the U.S. continues to grow — from 9 million people in 2010 to 33.8 million in 2020. One in seven U.S. infants was multiracial or multiethnic in 2015, according to a Pew Research Center report . Those who are parents realize how absolutely essential it is to make sure their children don’t just know Black history, but understand why certain events were important. 

Lindsay and I have always gone out of our way to make sure that our kids are exposed to not just different places, but different people and cultures. I have long believed that exposure is our best tool to fight racism, hatred and xenophobia. It’s a lot easier to be suspicious of a person or a group of people you just don’t know. 

My hope is that we are raising two children who fully appreciate and understand what it means to be Black in America. They hopefully will appreciate and understand the sacrifices that their grandparents and great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents made so they can enjoy the kind of life where race isn’t as top-of-mind for them. My mother talks openly about being the first in her high school to integrate, and how hard that was. She was the first in her family to go to college. There are so many firsts like that, and I hope my kids get to enjoy some seconds and thirds — and that at some point in our history, there are not so many superlatives. 

As told to Rheana Murray. This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Faculty, Staff, Student - February 19, 2021

What Does Black History Month Mean To You?

In celebration of Black History Month, the Student Life team asked students, faculty, alumni, and staff for quotes and thoughts about the importance of the season. Below is a compilation of the thoughts and experiences members of our community chose to share.

McSteve Ezikeoha, M.S. in Actuarial Science

"Black is beautiful, Black is excellent. Black is pain, Black is joy, Black is evident. Black is so much deeper than just African-American. Black is growing up around the barbershop. Black is stepping in for your mother because your father's gone. Black is being forced to leave the place you love because there's hate in it. Black is struggling to find your history or trace your roots. Black is being strong inside while facing defeat. Black is being guilty until proven innocent. But Black is all I know, there ain't a thing that I would change in it." Culled from Santan Dave's "Black"

Nia Hill, M.S. in Nonprofit Management

Black History Month is a reminder to all Americans that their country would not be as wealthy and sustainable today if it were not for the innovation, hard work, intellect, and courage of Black Americans that came before us. There are so many to give credit to! Just know that for me, because of the innumerable amount of Black folk that dedicated their lives to change, Black History Month re-affirms the fact that I, a proud Black woman, have no excuse to not impact my community, this nation, and ultimately the world.

Victor Oko, M.S. in Technology Management

Black History Month is about appreciating and recognizing key African American achievements.

Annette Parkins, M.A. in Social-Organizational Psychology

To me, Black History Month is a celebration of how far I've come in disappearing the shame around my identity, a season to honor our ancestors and their hidden contributions, and a time of reflection on the work still to be done.

Rachel Williams, '19SPS, M.S. in Strategic Communication

Black history month is a celebration of our ancestors and their excellence, motivation to always strive for the greatness that lies beyond our current circumstances, a sense of community, the task to create better paths for our successors, and the constant reminder that; without black history, there would be no history.

Rachel Oatis, '19SPS, M.S. in Nonprofit Management

Black History Month (BHM) for me is a reminder that Black is love and it has an undeniable unifying factor. With the outward exhibited forms of affection and love during the month of February, I reflect with others on why I’m so proud to be Black and love it. Don’t get me wrong..it’s always a good day to be Black and a Black woman but, during BHM there’s a special recognition universally that is bonded to this feeling. BHM is an invitation for others to join in the ongoing celebration of Blackness. It is unity in its highest form.

Damian Murray, M.S. in Technology Management

Black history month is celebrating the positive impact and the contributions that we have given to the world. It's black history month, real-life documentation of what our people are cable of accomplishing no matter the difficulties. Anything is possible.

Kayden Molock, M.S. in Sports Management

Black History Month means the appreciation and acknowledgement of Blackness and how it permeates all aspects of society. It’s the recognition of people and a culture that transcends the racist and imperial formations of the United States. It is a celebration of Black men, women, nonbinary, trans, disabled folx. It’s a reminder that the level of reverence shown during this month is something that needs to be consistent the entire year. It’s a call to action to continue to advocate for and uplift those within society who are often pushed to the margins.

Meghan Sowersby, M.S. in Strategic Communication

Black History cannot be contained or limited to a month. But it is a good reminder of Black peoples’ indelible imprint on world history.

Mydashia Hough, SPS Student Advisor

Black History Month is about our ancestors, change-makers, and revolutionaries -- whose names we know as well as those unheard of and forgotten. For many, the fruits of their labor were never seen or enjoyed, and we owe many of our freedoms to their efforts. We often relish the stories and legends but should gift our gratitude to the human side of the individuals who dedicated parts of themselves to better our world, and to have this be a regular practice that extends beyond a month in February, but penetrates the very fabric of our educational institutions and society.

Melissa Miller, SPS Leadership Coach

Black History Month is an opportunity to proudly shine a light on the Black diaspora's multifaceted histories and unsung historical figures. BHM encourages us to recognize our past, evaluate our present, and plan for our future. Lastly, it galvanizes and serves as a reminder of the tremendous work we have to continue to do all year long towards eradicating social injustices.

Andrea Stokes, M.S. in Nonprofit Management

Black History Month is the opportunity to engage with and embrace the contributions set forth by the African Diaspora. It’s also an opportunity to understand the struggles Black people around the world face, but also celebrate our resilience. Most importantly, this month reminds me of the beauty of being Black, and the diversity of our people and culture.

Clement Gibson, M.S. in Strategic Communication

Black History Month is a time when leaders and innovators of this country receive their flowers for their sacrifices, hard work, and creativity in the United States. It is a time shed light on shaded truths (and lies) of the past and acknowledge those who blazed trails we may not see in textbooks, or hear in lecture halls outside of HBCU's. It is a time to say thank you to those who labored for the fruits we enjoy today.

Erica Davis, '20SPS, M.S. in Strategic Communication

Black History means taking ALL that wasn't given then and making opportunities for today--honoring those who entrenched themselves on the battlefield for me. Sign up! Sign up! Serve today as Black History Month is a precious reminder that there is still so much work to be done in our communities and identifiable progress that my brothers and sisters must make. 

Black History has a sharp edge of holding myself accountable to continue to build bridges between law enforcement and the community. 

Black History teaches me new ways to strategically communicate with someone who doesn’t look like me... understand me.

Black History will always be the book I read.

Chelsea Hannah, M.S. in Strategic Communication

Black History Month is an important time to celebrate the impact of African American culture in the past, present and reminds us of hope and opportunity for the future. This year, it means so much to me because my position as the Chair of the Youth Task Force for Meaningful Change at Universal Music Group calls for taking time during this month to highlight and recognize all of the achievements of African Americans within the music industry and inspiring others to carry on the legacy. Coming from a family of pioneers, this month also reminds me of the endless possibilities in the world to be so much greater. I look forward to matching the same energy of those that came before me and leaving an impact that is greater than myself.

Kandis Thorpe, M.S. in Social Work, School of Social Work 

Black History Month to me is about Black liberation and getting closer to my roots by acknowledging and highlighting the pioneers who came before us. It means to look at our past, present, and future as a collective and continuing the work our ancestors has started. BHM means an emphasis on literacy. It’s very important in learning Black history. To dig into the depths of what was left out of the history books and class curriculums is empowering yet sparks drive within me to continue my work of dismantling oppressive systems within my field of social work.

Joshua Mackey, Assistant Director of Student Affairs, School of the Arts

Black History Month means acknowledging, honoring, and celebrating the history of Black folks. I also see it as a time to shed light on how the Black community continues to advance culture, industry, and society, even in the midst of all the injustices we still face as a community.