Black History Month
January 4, 2022
Originally started as Negro History Week, Black History Month has become a widely known event, taking place in the month of February. However, many people aren’t aware of the historical significance of this month.
Let me set the scene. It’s September of 1915. 50 years have passed since the thirteenth amendment was put into effect, abolishing slavery in the United States.
Carter G. Woodson and Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), which would later be known as the Association for the Study of African Life and History (ASALH).
The ASNLH first sponsored National Negro History Week in 1926. They chose the second week in February for the event to coincide with Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays.
Many people started celebrating Negro History Week, and many schools started implementing this week into their own schedules. Some college campuses started to celebrate it all month long, and Black History Month was born.
President Gerald Ford officially recognized black history month in the year 1976. Since then, every president of the United States has named the month of February as Black History Month.
Each year, Black History Month has a theme as to what part of black culture would be celebrated. 2022’s Black History Month’s theme is “Black Health and Wellness.”
According to the ASALH website, the theme “acknowledges the legacy of not only Black scholars and medical practitioners in Western medicine, but also other ways of knowing (e.g., birthworkers, doulas, midwives, naturopaths, herbalists, etc.) throughout the African Diaspora.”
Despite the decades and decades of hardships black people faced in this country, having one month to celebrate our history and culture is enough for us, said no one ever. We still have a lot to do in this country, and one month is not enough to talk about the history, struggles, and overall culture of black people. We should be having these conversations for just one month out of the year, these should be ongoing conversations.