Every February, the U.S. honors the contributions and sacrifices of African Americans who have helped form the nation. Black History Month celebrates the prosperous cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities that are an indelible phase of our country’s history.
This year’s theme, Black Health and Wellness, pays homage to medical pupils and health care providers. The theme is in particular timely as we enter the third yr of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected minority communities and positioned special burdens on Black health care experts.
The story of Black History Month starts in 1915, half of a century after the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.
That September, the Harvard-trained historian Carter G. Woodson and the distinguished minister Jesse E. Moorland established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), an organization devoted to studying and promoting achievements by Black Americans and other peoples of African descent. Woodson chose February specifically because it covered the birthdays of Frederick Douglass (February 14) and Abraham Lincoln (February 12). Thus, Woodson created Negro History Week around the two birthdays as a way of “commemorating the black past,” in accordance to ASALH.
Forty years after Ford formally identified Black History Month, it was Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, who delivered a message of his very own from the White House, a location constructed by slaves
In February 1969, the notion for Black History Month was promoted by Black college students and educators at Kent State University, observed by the first celebration of Black History Month on campus and nearby surroundings one year later. Fast forward six years and Black History Month was broadly being celebrated throughout the country, and no longer solely in schools, colleges, and neighborhood centers. In 1976, President Gerald Ford praised Black History Month, urging all residents to “seize the chance to honor the too-often ignored accomplishments of Black Americans in each and every vicinity of recreation all through our history.”
Only the US and Canada celebrate National Black History Month in February. Other countries, such as the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Ireland, have a tendency to celebrate black history in October.
The theme of Black History Month 2021 was “The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity,” chosen by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
King suggested blackpast.org, Black History 101 Mobile Museum and the books “A Black Women’s History of the United States” and “From Slavery to Freedom” as resources for those looking to learn more about Black history.
King emphasized that educators should “teach Black history from Black perspectives.” He offered seven guiding principles for educators to explore when teaching Black history:
- Power, oppression and racism
- Black agency, perseverance and resistance
- Africa and the African diaspora
- Black joy and Black love
- Black identities – other than heterosexual, Christian, middle-class Black men
- Black historical contention and the problematic aspects of Black history
- Black excellence
For many modern-day Black millennials, the month-long celebration for Black History Month provides an chance to reimagine what chances lie ahead. But for many, the forces that drove Woodson almost a century in the past are greater applicable than ever.
As Lonnie G. Bunch III, Director of the Smithsonian Institution stated at the opening of the Washington D.C.’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016: “There is no extra effective pressure than a people steeped in their history. And there is no greater reason than honouring our conflict and ancestors by remembering”.
