Black historical past has at all times existed. The combat has by no means been about whether or not it occurred, however whether or not it might be acknowledged, taught, and remembered.
This 12 months at theGrio, our Black Historical past Month theme is “If It Weren’t For Us,” a phrase that reads like a slogan, however displays a reality we all know all too effectively. It’s a reminder that a lot of what defines American tradition—its creativity, innovation, language, music, labor, and elegance—was constructed by Black individuals, regardless of others being rewarded for it. From delicacies to couture, activism to academia, Black brilliance has and can probably at all times be the blueprint.
And but, for many people, Black historical past has usually been launched in fragments. We realized the names early, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, normally squeezed right into a February lesson plan, a poster board venture, or a brief college meeting earlier than issues went again to “regular.” However what we didn’t at all times study was how Black Historical past Month itself got here to be, who fought for it, and why its existence nonetheless issues a century later.
So how did Black Historical past Month start? And why February?
The story begins with Carter G. Woodson. A pivotal determine in African American historical past, greatest identified for his 1933 guide “The Miseducation of the Negro,” Woodson based the Affiliation for the Research of Negro Life and Historical past (ASALH) in 1915, creating an institutional residence devoted to researching, preserving, and documenting the lives and contributions of Black Individuals. Over a decade later, he would go on to launch the primary Negro Historical past Week in an effort to highlight extra Black American tales.
Aligning it with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (Feb.12) and Frederick Douglass (Feb. 14), two figures who, on the time, Black communities already honored for his or her roles within the abolition of slavery, the vacation was deliberately celebrated through the second week of February. Negro Historical past was a name to motion, encouraging faculties, church buildings, and civic organizations to mirror and educate Black historical past year-round, not as an apart, however as a cornerstone of American historical past itself. Woodson believed that Black historical past wasn’t supplemental. It was important. That perception would later form “The Miseducation of the Negro”, a guide that critiqued an schooling system designed to disconnect Black individuals from their very own energy and legacy.
Fifty years after the launch of Negro Historical past Weeek, in 1976, through the nation’s bicentennial, President Gerald Ford expanded Negro Historical past Week into Black Historical past Month, urging Individuals to acknowledge “the too-often uncared for accomplishments of Black Individuals.” Since then, U.S. presidents have issued annual proclamations supporting ASALH’s themes, a quiet acknowledgment that Woodson’s work had reshaped the nationwide conscience.
Now, 100 years after its founding, Black Historical past commemorations stay each a celebration and a problem. They ask us not solely to honor the previous, however to interrogate the current. To acknowledge how a lot has been borrowed, remixed, and rebranded with out credit score. To ask who will get remembered, who will get rewarded, and who will get omitted of the archive.
As a result of if it weren’t for us, there could be no American story as we all know it. And if we don’t inform our tales with care, who will?
