In 1926, Americans began to recognize black history with “Negro History Week,” which would later become “Black History Month.” What some may not realize is that when the tradition originated, very little history was known due to the lack of documents and that supported the happenings of years prior to 1926. Although Blacks had been in America for a long amount of time, their presence was not evident in history books.
They would not become evident or gain any prominence until the work of Dr. Carter G. Woodson. His parents were former slaves and he spent the majority of his childhood in the Kentucky Coal mines. He didn’t even enroll into high school until he was 20 years old. He graduated in two years and went on to get his Ph.D. from Harvard. Woodson was disturbed to find that the majority of history books studied by Americans had ignored the Black-American population and that when they were mentioned, it was mentioned in ways that conveyed the message that Blacks were inferior to all other races.
Woodson took on the challenge of writing Black Americans into the Nations History. He established the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now called the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History) in 1915, and a year later founded the widely respected Journal of Negro History. Short after he launched “Negro History Week” as an initiative to bring national attention to the contributions of black people throughout American history.
Woodson chose the second week of February because it contained the birthdays of two influential leaders that had a major effect on Black Americans — Fredrick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.Yet Woodson was up to something more than building on tradition. Woodson aimed to reform it from the study of two great men to a great race. Though he admired both men, Woodson had never been fond of the celebrations held in their honor. More importantly, Woodson believed that history was made by the people, not simply or primarily by great men. For “Negro History Week” Woodson envisioned the study and celebration of the Negro as a race, not simply as the producers of a great man. Lincoln, had not freed the slaves—the Union Army, including hundreds of thousands of black soldiers and sailors did. Rather than focusing on two men, the black community, he believed, should focus on the countless black men and women who had contributed to the advance of human civilization.
It wasn’t until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s that the week was taken seriously. Before the decade was over, “Negro History Week” was well on it’s way to being “Black History Month” The shift from a week to a month occurred just prior to Woodson’s death. Since the mid-1970s, every American president, Democrat and Republican, has endorsed Black History Month.
What Carter G. Woodson would say about the continued celebrations is debated, but he would definitely smile about all honest efforts to make black history a field of serious study and provide the public with education and celebration with meaning. He would also celebrate the prominence of African-Americans in history textbooks and the fact that African American History is a field at his alma mater: Harvard University .
