By HAYA PANJWANI, Related Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Starting Feb. 1, faculties, museums and communities throughout the nation will mark the beginning of Black Historical past Month –- a celebration of Black historical past, tradition and schooling.
The historical past of the month dates again virtually a century, and the best way it’s celebrated and advanced has created historical past in itself.
The origins of the month
Black Historical past Month wasn’t all the time a monthlong celebration. In February 1926, historian and creator Carter G. Woodson created Negro Historical past Week. It was a weeklong celebration in an effort to show folks about African-American historical past and the contributions of Black folks.
This effort was made beneath the umbrella of a company he based in September 1915 referred to as the Affiliation for the Examine of African American Life and Historical past, or ASALH.
“I believe Black people understood what they’d contributed to America’s historic narrative, however nobody was speaking about it,” stated Kaye Whitehead, the group’s president. “Nobody was centralizing it till Dr. Carter G. Woodson was in 1926.”
After he handed away in 1950, the members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, which Dr. Woodson was a member of, did numerous groundwork to encourage celebrating the week. The fraternity was additionally answerable for the push to increase the celebrations to a full month. Ultimately, in 1976, President Gerald Ford grew to become the primary president to difficulty a message recognizing the month.
Since then, presidents have made annual proclamations for Nationwide Black Historical past Month, a practice that President Donald Trump plans to proceed, in line with White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Celebrating Black historical past
The Affiliation for the Examine of African American Life and Historical past releases a theme for every year, which is a observe Woodson began.
This 12 months’s theme is African Individuals and Labor. The group plans to make use of the month, and the remainder of the 12 months, specializing in the function of Black labor in constructing the nation by means of trade or group work.
Black historical past can be celebrated inside communities and households. Price Ok. Hayes, an affiliate professor of historical past and Africana research at Morehouse School, stated some households might use the month to discover their family tree, find out about their ancestors or come collectively to eat a meal and make household timber.
“We could also be extra accustomed to the extra public methods, however there are additionally much more intimate methods by which these messages are unfold and the best way that the vacation is propagated,” Hayes stated.
At some faculties, assemblies or gatherings are held to honor Black leaders, in line with the nonpartisan group the Heart for Racial Justice in Schooling.
“Some faculties invite elders to share their knowledge and lived experiences, permitting younger folks to study from them, ask questions, and construct significant connections throughout generations,” the middle stated in an e-mail to The Related Press. “Moreover, some communities choose particular subjects or rules for in-depth exploration in the course of the month.”
Myths about Black Historical past Month
Myths round Black Historical past Month proceed, Whitehead stated, together with the concept the U.S. authorities purposely selected the shortest month of the 12 months. In actuality, Woodson selected February as a result of two outstanding figures within the civil rights motion — Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass — had birthdays within the week he selected.
Whitehead additionally stresses that Black historical past shouldn’t simply be taught for the month of February, however slightly taught and celebrated for all the 12 months.
Celebrities, together with actor Morgan Freeman, have criticized it being only a monthlong celebration. However Hayes argued that the month isn’t nearly celebrating African-American historical past, however Black historical past as an entire.
“I believe that there’s this need to make this level that African-American historical past or Black historical past is so integral to the American story, American historical past,” Hayes stated. “However that reduces Black historical past to African-American historical past, and that’s not how it’s and is well known from its origins to today … So when you’re speaking about Black Historical past Month, you’re not solely speaking about Nat Turner, you’re additionally speaking about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution. You’re speaking about most of the men and women who led the independence actions on the African continent.”
Whitehead added that Black historical past isn’t just for Black folks, it’s for all folks.
“In case you’re in an atmosphere and all people within the atmosphere is white, you want Black Historical past Month greater than ever as a result of you must perceive that the world, though you prefer to imagine it matches into this field, it doesn’t,” Whitehead stated.
Black historical past doesn’t depend on a presidential proclamation, Whitehead and others stated. Whitehead stated Black folks don’t want permission to mark the month.
“It doesn’t occur as a result of we’re ready for an announcement to be launched. We proclaim it, We rejoice it, we uplift, we middle it and we assist folks to know that that is our historical past,” she stated.
Black Historical past Month in 2025
Not less than one authorities company has paused celebrations of cultural or historic occasions, together with Black Historical past Month. However on the Affiliation for the Examine of African American Life and Historical past, the selections of the brand new Trump administration round Range, Fairness and Inclusion initiatives won’t have an effect on how Black Historical past Month is well known.
“Negro Historical past Week began in 1926 with none proclamation from anybody aside from the folks,” stated ASALH government director Sylvia Cyrus. “The president of america has his views, and positively we assume that he understands the contributions that African Individuals and different folks of coloration have made.”
A White Home spokesperson has stated that they intend to rejoice the month.
Some imagine how Black historical past is taught could possibly be affected by the brand new administration’s outlook on Range, Fairness and Inclusion applications.
The Heart for Racial Justice in Schooling stated educators could also be extra inspired to show Black historical past of their school rooms all year long. “Resistance takes many inspiring types, and people devoted to celebrating this important historical past are using inventive and strategic approaches to share and additional develop it,” the group stated in an e-mail.
Hayes agreed and stated it might encourage others to show communities in regards to the contributions of Black folks.
“African Individuals, Black people all through the world, identical to all cultures all through the world, have taken possession of their historical past,” he stated. “And these numerous political developments might form the contours of it. However this story goes to be instructed whatever the political dynamics of the actual time.”
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