The long and rich story behind Black History Month
In 1976, it was President Gerald R. Ford who declared February Black History Month. Black History Month celebrates and honors the sacrifices and contributions made by African Americans throughout the history of our country. Sara Clarke Kaplan, the executive director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University said, “There is no American History without African American history.”
Kaplan also said that “The Black experience is embedded in everything we think of as ‘American History.’”
The father of Black history was Cater
G. Woodson (1875-1950), a historian and scholar who, in 1926, wanted a designated time to educate all Americans about the contributions made by African Americans.
In 1915, Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH later became ASALH) and selected the first two weeks in February to the teaching of Black history in public schools.
According to Albert Broussard, a professor of American history at Texas A&M, “Woodson’s goal from the very beginning was to make the celebration of Black history a ‘serious area of study.’”
Woodson chose February because of the birthdays of two great Americans, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, who played a prominent role in shaping Black history. In addition, since Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, many Black communities, along with Republicans,
had already been celebrating both Lincoln’s and Douglass’ birthdays. Well aware of these celebrations, Woodson built Negro History Week around traditional days of commemorating the Black past. He asked the public to not just create a new tradition, but to extend their study of Black history, thus increasing its chances for success. By the late 1960s, the idea grew in acceptance and popularity into what is now known as Black History
Month.
Did you know that Black people invented or improved upon many of the objects that we still use today? Listed below are 10 such inventions by African American inventors.
The first automatic elevator doors – Alexander Miles, 1867
The refrigerator – John Standard
The traffic signal and the gas mask – Garrett Morgan, 1923/1914
The Super Soaker (Water Gun) – Lonnie Johnson, 1982
The folding ironing board — Sarah Boone, 1892
The automatic gear shift — Richard Spikes, 1932
The automatic revolver — Elijah McCoy, 1872
First human-programmable computer language — Katherine Johnson, 1952
The hairbrush – Luda Newman, 1898
Potato chips – George Speck, 1853