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Educators and College Campuses Played a Key Role in the Origins of Black History Month Celebrations
Dr. Carter Woodson is credited with starting a national “Negro History Week” in 1926 which is considered the origin of Black History Month
Woodson was the second African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard (after W.E.B. DuBois)
The Negro History Week was dedicated to teachings, local celebrations, and performances celebrating Black History
Woodson helped found the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) which sponsored the first Negro History Week
Kent State University was credited as the first institution to officially observe Black History as a month-long celebration (doing so in 1970)
Every U.S. President since President Gerald Ford in 1976 has officially designated February as Black History Month
2021’s Black History Month theme is “Black Family: Representation, Identity and Diversity”
Across NCAA member institutions’ campuses, conference offices and the NCAA national office, a variety of campaigns, educational programming, celebrations, and policy recommendations are emerging as part of Black History Month. According to ritetag.com, the celebration lives in the digital age -- hashtags like #bhm and #blackhistorymonth are some of the most popular on Twitter and other social media platforms promoting the month-long celebration.
This week’s AV highlights the historical origins of Black History Month.
In many ways, Black History Month was conceived through the vision and groundwork laid by Dr. Carter Woodson. Born in 1875 in New Canton, Virginia, Woodson had worked as a sharecropper, miner and various other jobs during his childhood to help support his large family. Though he entered high school late, he made up for lost time, graduating in less than two years. After attending Berea College in Kentucky (an NCAA Division III institution) where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in 1903, Woodson worked in the Philippines as an education superintendent for the U.S. government. He earned another bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree at the University of Chicago (an NCAA Division III institution) before entering Harvard (an NCAA Division I institution). In 1912, he became only the second African American (after W.E.B. DuBois) to earn a doctorate from that institution.
In 1915, Woodson traveled back to Chicago from his home in Washington, D.C., to take part in a national celebration of the 50th anniversary of emancipation. As he joined the thousands of Black Americans celebrating the exhibits highlighting African American achievements since the abolition of slavery, Woodson was inspired to do more in the spirit of celebrating Black history and heritage. Before he left Chicago, the Harvard-trained Woodson and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), an organization dedicated to researching and promoting achievements by Black Americans and other peoples of African descent. A year later, Woodson singlehandedly launched the Journal of Negro History, in which he and other researchers brought attention to the achievements of Black Americans.
Known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the group sponsored a national Negro History week in 1926, choosing the second week of February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The event inspired schools and communities nationwide to organize local celebrations, establish history clubs and host performances and lectures.
Like DuBois, Woodson believed that young African Americans in the early 20th century were not being taught enough of their own heritage and of the achievements of their ancestors. To get his message out, Woodson first turned to his fraternity, Omega Psi Phi, which created Negro History and Literature Week in 1924. But Woodson wanted a wider celebration, and he decided the ASNLH should take on the task itself.
As schools and other organizations across the country quickly embraced Woodson’s initiative, he and his colleagues struggled to meet the demand for course materials and other resources. The ASNLH formed branches all over the country, though its national headquarters remained centered in Woodson’s row house on Ninth Street in Washington D.C. The house was also home base for the Associated Publishers Press, which Woodson had founded in 1921.
In Becoming African Americans, author Clare Courbald noted, “Negro History Week was an opportunity for Woodson to appeal for production and purchase of materials suitable for children to learn (African American) history.” The efforts by Woodson helped create this dedicated week of teachers in middle schools and high schools providing lessons on the multiple dimensions of black history. In turn, more attention from community leaders, ministers, and the press amplified the interest and support of the Negro History Week.
The first observance of Black History as a month-long celebration occurred at Kent State University (an NCAA Division I institution) which celebrated Black History Month in 1970, prior to any official government proclamation. Kentwired.com covered in-depth how Kent State University students -- including Dr. Timothy Moore, a Kent State alum and professor emeritus -- were trailblazers in organizing the first Black History month-long celebration highlighted by a series of campus events at the start of the 1970s. The 50th anniversary of this seminal event was celebrated last year on Kent State’s campus.
Subsequent to Kent State formally celebrating Black History over the month of February, in 1976, President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month and called upon the public to “...seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.
Fast forward to 2021, this year’s Black History Month theme is “Black Family: Representation, Identity and Diversity” which explores the African diaspora and the spread of Black families across the United States.
ASALH’s announcement promoting its 2021 Black History Month Festival added the following context to this year’s theme:
“The black family has been a topic of study in many disciplines -- history, literature, the visual arts and film studies, sociology, anthropology, and social policy. Its representation, identity, and diversity have been reverenced, stereotyped, and vilified from the days of slavery to the present day. The black family knows no single location, since family reunions and genetic-ancestry searches testify to the spread of family members across states, nations, and continents. Not only are individual black families diasporic, but Africa and the diaspora itself have been long portrayed as the black family at large.
While the role of the black family has been described by some as a microcosm of the entire race, its complexity as the “foundation” of African American life and history can be seen in numerous debates over how to represent its meaning and typicality from a historical perspective -- as slave or free, as patriarchal or matriarchal/matrifocal, as single-headed or dual-headed household, as extended or nuclear, as fictive kin or blood lineage, as legal or common law, and as black or interracial, etc. Variation appears, as well, in discussions on the nature and impact of parenting, childhood, marriage, gender norms, sexuality, and incarceration. The family offers a rich tapestry of images for exploring the African American past and present.”
ASALH is hosting a series of virtual events as part of its 2021 Black History Month Celebration. For more information, click here.
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