The Long History of Black History Month

the story of Black History Month begins in Chicago. During the summer of nineteen fifteen, and alumnus of the University of Chicago with many friends in the city, Cartergie Woodson, traveled from Washington, d c. To participate in a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation sponsored by the State of Illinois. Thousands of African Americans traveled from across the country to see exhibits highlighting the progress their people

had made since the destruction of slavery. Awarded a doctorate in Harvard three years earlier, Woodson joined the other exhibitors with a Black History display. Despite being held at the Colisseum, the site of the nineteen twelve Republican Convention, an overflow crowd of six to twelve thousand waited outside for their turn to view the exhibits. Fired by the three week celebration, Woodson decided to form an organization to promote the scientific

study of black life and history. Before leaving town on September ninth, Woodson met at the Wabash YMCA with A. L. Jackson and three others and formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. A graduate member of Omega sci Fi, he urged his fraternity brothers to take up the work. In nineteen twenty four, they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week. Their outreach was significant, but Woodson

desired greater impact. As he told an audience of Hampton Institute students, quote, we are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements. In nineteen twenty five, he decided that the Association had to shoulder the responsibility going forward. It would both create and popularize knowledge about the black past. He sent out a press release announcing Negro History Week in February nineteen

twenty six. It is commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays of the two great Americans who played dominant roles in shaping Black history, namely Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, whose birthdays are the twelfth and fourteenth, respectively. From the beginning, Woodson was overwhelmed with the response to his call. Negro History Week appeared across the country in

schools and before the public. The nineteen twenties was the decade of the New Negro, a name given to the World War One generation because of its rising racial pride and consciousness. Urbanization and industrialization had brought over a million African Americans from the rural South into some big cities

in the nation. In the nineteen forties, efforts began slowly within the black community to expand the study of black history in the schools and Black History celebrations before the public and the South, Black teachers often taught Negro history as a supplement to United States history. One early beneficiary of the movement reported that his teacher would hide Woodson's textbook beneath the desk to avoid drawing the wrath of

the principal sound familiar. During the Civil Rights movement in the South, the Freedom schools incorporated black history into the curriculum advanced social change. The Negro History movement was an intellectual insurgency that was part of every larger effort to transform race relations. The nineteen sixties had a dramatic effect on the study and celebration of black history. Before the decade was over, Negro History Week would be well on

its way to becoming Black History Month. The shift to a month long celebration began even before doctor Woodson's death. As early as nineteen forties, Blacks in West Virginia, a state where Woodson often spoke, began to celebrate February as Negro History Month. Okay, that was kind of in pieces, So the full article is up and it's been cited. This is just something from Wikipedia. Just wanted to add.

Black History Month was being celebrated all across the country and educational institutions, centers for black culture, and community centers both great and small. When President Gerald Ford recognized Black History Month in nineteen seventy six during celebration of the United States bysin Tenative tennial, the arge Americans to seize the opportunity to honor the two often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.

So that's the history of that history. To say, mm hmm,