Black History Month

Celebrate the legacy and significance of the African American experience by engaging with this guide's information.

Photo courtesy of Aldine ISD, Houston, TX

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history. - https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month

The annual celebration of Negro History Week was one of the historian Carter G. Woodson's (1875–1950) most successful efforts to popularize the study of black history. Omega Phi, one of the oldest African-American fraternities, first celebrated black achievements on Lincoln's birthday (February 12). Woodson, an honorary member of the fraternity, convinced the Omegas to let the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he had founded in 1915, sponsor Negro History Week in an effort to reach a larger audience. Woodson began the annual celebration in 1926 to increase awareness of and interest in black history among both blacks and whites. Months before the first celebration, he sent out promotional brochures and pamphlets suggesting ways to celebrate to state boards of education, elementary and secondary schools, colleges, women's clubs, black newspapers and periodicals, and white scholarly journals. Woodson chose the second week of February, to commemorate the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Each year the association produced bibliographies, photographs, books, pamphlets, and other promotional literature to assist the black community in the celebration. Over 100 photographs of blacks were available for sale, and specialized pamphlets included bibliographies on various aspects of African-American history. In 1928 Woodson also prepared a "Table of 152 Important Events and Dates in Negro History," which he sold for fifty cents. Negro History Week celebrations generally included parades of costumed characters depicting the lives of famous blacks, as well as breakfasts, banquets, lectures, poetry readings, speeches, exhibits, and other special presentations.  -  Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History (Vol. 1. 2^nd ed.)