News-Letter

Media Credit: Matt Hansen Graphic by Matt Hansen [Click to enlarge]

When Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded "Negro History Week" in 1926, he did so in order to make "the world see the Negro as a participant rather than as a lay figure in history."

The national celebration grew out of a community service day on Feb. 14 honoring the birthday of Frederick Douglass, the African-American author and abolitionist. Dr. Woodson, the second African-American to earn a graduate degree from Harvard and a prominent historian, expanded the holiday so as to coincide with the birthdays of both Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. He sought to improve race relations by appealing to both blacks and whites rather than making Negro History Week an exclusively African American holiday.

At the time of the holiday's inception, there was virtually no mention of black or any other minority history in American school curricula. When discussed, blacks were only referred to in regards to their low socioeconomic status without adequate context as to why their poverty persisted.

Woodson and other prominent leaders of his generation recognized that without a clear understanding of the history surrounding slavery, the Jim Crow era, sharecropping, poll taxes, and other issues that were so significant in determining the livelihood of blacks, Americans would continue to misunderstand each other, ensuring the continuation of racial tensions. Thus, "Negro History Week" was created to both acknowledge and integrate black history into American history as well as to highlight important African-American contributions to the chronicle of this nation.

The annual event quickly became a popular celebration of culture and history within the black population. It was not until the 1950s and '60s that it began to take hold in broader American society. By this time, the modern civil rights movement was in full swing and one of the consequences was that in 1976, during the nation's bicentennial, Black History Month as we know it was created.

That is not to say that the celebration was without controversy. At his death in 1950, Woodson felt as though many of the depictions of blacks celebrated during the holiday were shallow and did not further the goal of promoting African-American history. More recently, Morgan Freeman called the idea of Black History Month "ridiculous" during an interview on 60 Minutes. "You're going to relegate my history to a month?" he went on to say, "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."

Continued...

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