February marks the celebration of Black History Month.
Americans have recognized Black History Month annually since 1926, first as “Negro History Week.” It was pioneered by Dr. Carter Woodson who, born to parents of former slaves, spent his childhood working in the Kentucky coal mines and enrolled in high school at age 20.
He graduated within two years and later went on to earn a Ph.D from Harvard. Woodson was disturbed to find in his studies that history books largely ignored the accomplishments of black Americans and took on the challenge of writing black Americans into the nation’s 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.
In 1926, 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 for the celebration since it marked the birthdays of two men who greatly influenced the black American population, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
It was extended to a month long celebration in the 1960s.
In addition to recognizing Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States, other notable people celebrated this month include Gwendolyn Brooks (first African-American to receive a Pulitzer Prize), Shirley Chisholm (first African-American Woman elected to Congress in 1968), Carol Moseley-Braun (first African-American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate in 1992), Toni Morrison (first African-American to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993), Sidney Poitier (first African-American to win an Oscar for Best Actor in 1963), Halle Berry (first African-American to win an Oscar for Best Actress in 2001), Guion Bluford (first African-American astronaut to launch into space in 1983), Ralph Bunche (first African-American to win a Nobel Peace Prize in 1950), and Jack Johnson (first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion in 1908).
Michael Mignogna is the mayor of Voorhees. He can be reached at [email protected].
