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Craig White's Literature Courses Terms / Themes Black History Month |
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Black History Month . . . every February since 1976
Why February?
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, chapter 1, p. 1: "I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. . . . The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege."
Later in life Douglass did some research and found that he was born 14 February 1818. (Valentine’s Day wasn't celebrated in this country until about 30 years later.)
Douglass died in 1895, "The Lincoln of Black America."
In the early 1900s, an African American woman who was a leading educator in the Washington DC area, Mary Church Terrell, began holding annual commemorations of Douglass’s birthday.
Another African American educator and journalist, Carter Woodson, attended these events, and in 1826 Woodson announced the expansion of Douglass’s birthday remembrance into “Black History Week.”
Fifty years later, at our nation’s bicentennial in 1976, “Black History Week” became “Black History Month.”
No other group recognized so specially and deliberately--invariably raises questions such as, Should we have Irish History Month? etc.
Implicit judgment: except for special occasions like St. Patrick’s Day, all those other ethnic groups eventually just become "Americans" without another name in front and without a special month of history.Why the special consideration for Black History?
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