Some years in the past, I made a declaration at a Black historical past panel that I’m not pleased with: “We should always eliminate Black Historical past Month.” I wasn’t being anti-Black – fairly the alternative. I used to be drawing on how I had interpreted Carter G. Woodson’s viewpoints on the research of “the Negro in historical past.”
“Black historical past wasn’t one thing to be studied in a month,” I contended, “however ought to be part of a larger curriculum.”
In later years, I’d have a larger appreciation for the truth that Black Historical past Month is a considerate evolution of Negro Historical past Week. Woodson, who is taken into account the “father of Black historical past,” based that commemoration in February 1926 as a result of there have been already celebrations on the time that centered round each Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
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Our columnist talks with one in all Black Historical past Month’s modern-day keepers concerning the work it takes to recollect the previous – and to carve out area for the long run.
However Woodson usually sought extra vital commemoration – and collaboration, which is why he based the Affiliation for the Examine of Negro Life and Historical past in 1915. On the web site of what’s now referred to as the Affiliation for the Examine of African American Life and Historical past (ASALH) is an article, “The Origins of Black Historical past Month.” In it, Daryl Scott, a former president of the group, writes that Woodson was “as much as one thing greater than constructing on custom.”
“With out saying so, he aimed to reform it from the research of two nice males to an amazing race. Although he admired each males, Woodson had by no means been keen on the celebrations held of their honor,” Dr. Scott writes. “Slightly than specializing in two males, the black group, he believed, ought to give attention to the numerous black women and men who had contributed to the advance of human civilization.”
I had an opportunity to talk with Dr. Scott by cellphone just lately. Like Black Historical past Month, he’s a Chicago native deeply rooted within the research of a folks. A retired Howard College professor who’s now instructing at Morgan State College, he grew up within the Windy Metropolis through the Civil Rights Motion of the Nineteen Sixties. He says he’s been writing about Black historical past since “second grade.” And even that hardly scratches the floor.
In grammar faculty, he studied historical past on the George Cleveland Corridor library department. “That library was named after one of many [ASALH] founders. One of many librarians there was Vivian Harsh, who was a life member of the affiliation and a up to date of Carter G. Woodson,” he says. “So I had this type of family tree that runs alongside the historical past of the affiliation.”
Dr. Scott’s life is a reminder of the timelessness of Black historical past. Wherever one chooses to choose it up is the beginning of one thing essential, and on the identical time, half of a bigger and extra stunning narrative. The ASALH birthed Negro Historical past Week, inspiring a wave of Black historical past golf equipment and common curiosity. The interval of cultural revival stemming from the civil rights battle of the Nineteen Sixties transforms Negro Historical past Week into Negro Historical past Month, and in the end, the present high-profile presentation.
Throughout our dialog, I briefly revisit my outdated excited about Black Historical past Month and its relevance. Dr. Scott says one thing sobering in response: “Let’s watch out, as a result of we might be too glib about that.”
“[Woodson] could have desired for Black historical past to all the time be included in all features of American historical past in terms of Ok-12. … however that doesn’t preclude having Negro Historical past Week,” he says. “The idea of Negro Historical past Week was that what we discovered all yr about Black folks, we’d discuss and provides particular focus in February. … He understood that issues are all the time talked about in particulars, so that you don’t lose particularism if you happen to inform the bigger story.”
The research of Black historical past isn’t solely an train in specifics, however irony. For as a lot as Black Historical past Month has change into a business endeavor, it’s nonetheless an appreciation of Black folks, based by Black folks. And its origins in making an attempt to include Black historical past into general historical past fly within the face of opponents who see the commemoration as racially divisive.
However the depths of that irony transcend the superficial, and are a problem round how People admire historical past general, explains Dr. Scott.
“One of the fascinating issues that folks don’t know is that February was American Historical past Month earlier than it was Black Historical past Month. American Historical past Month used to get all of the presidential proclamations the place Black historical past, Negro historical past, we obtained none,” Dr. Scott says. “And but, Negro Historical past Week turns into Black Historical past Month by the mid-’70s, and everybody has forgotten that February was American Historical past Month. So the one historical past that has taken root efficiently as a type of public celebration of historical past is Black historical past.”
Maybe it’s becoming that ASALH’s 2025 theme for Black Historical past Month is African People and labor. Remembering the previous and carving out area for the long run require work.
