Americans have officially celebrated Black History Month since February 10 , 1976 , when President Gerald R. Ford established it as a national observance in anaddressthat lauded its founder , Black historianDr . Carter G. Woodson , and the " impressive contributions of Black Americans to our internal life and culture . "
But why February ? Was it chosen willy - nilly or does February have exceptional significance ? It decidedly does .
The Father of Black History
We owe the celebration of Black History Month to Woodson , who made it his life ’s oeuvre to increase public cognisance of Black history and refinement . Known as the male parent of bleak history , this son of former enslaved people worked his way out of the Kentucky coal mine to became a Harvard - educate historian and journalist . Disheartened to discover that story al-Qur’an excluded the contraband experience in American life-time beyond ways that portrayed Black masses as socially inferior , he took on the challenge of writing a proud and true Black account into America ’s home consciousness .
Woodsonbelievedthat , " those who have no record of what their forebears have action lose the inspiration which amount from the teaching of life and history . " With that in mind , in 1915 , he found the Association for the Study of African American Life and History ( ASALH ) and the seminalJournal of Negro Historyin 1916 . In February 1926 , he introduced the jubilation of Negro History Week as a way to beam a spark on the uncounted contributions of ignominious people throughout American chronicle .
Woodson and the ASALH pick out the 2nd calendar week in February to launch Negro History Week because it coincide with the birthdays ofAbraham Lincoln , whose 1863Emancipation Proclamationended thralldom , and ofFrederick Douglass , the former enslaved human being turned social reformer who became a national force in the emancipationist trend . Other February events of diachronic merit included the birth of Civil Rights iconW. E. B. Du Boisand the exit of the15th Amendmenton Feb. 3 , 1870 , which gave fateful mass the rightfield to vote .
The whimsey of expand Negro History Week to a month germinate over the decennium leading up to and during the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties . Freedom Schoolsin the South incorporated Negro History Week into curricula and by the mid-1960s many colleges and university across the country began to translate the weeklong event into a monthlong celebration on their campuses . Leaders of the Black United Students organization at Kent State University proposed expanding it to a calendar month , and in 1970 they celebrated Black History Month for the first clip on their campus . By the prison term President Ford made it a national observation in 1976 , many mayor had already support it as a municipal celebration .
Each iteration of the result since its inception in 1926 has had aspecific themeas say by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History .
Black History Month February
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