Title: Black History Is American History | HuffPost
Headings: Black History Is American History
Black History Is American History
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Content: Black History Is American History | HuffPost
Dr. Herron Keyon Gaston, Contributor
Pastor, Author, Social Critic, Public Intellectual & Ivy League University Administrator
Black History Is American History
02/05/2015 12:46 pm ET Updated Apr 07, 2015
In 1915, Dr. Carter G. Woodson established the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. It was a way to highlight the contributions of African Americans, and to set the record straight that African Americans remained at the heart of the American story. He also wanted to make African American history accessible for all Americans. The teaching of African American history did not happen in a vacuum, but instead, it took nearly a hundred years to come to fruition. In 1926, America began to celebrate Negro History Week in the month of February as a way to commemorate the life and contributions of African Americans. The month of February was selected because it was the birth month of Fredrick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. These two legendary men played a crucial role in history with respect to their influence on Black life and culture. However, in the 1960s with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement coupled with the Black Power Movement and the unrelenting quest for civil rights, African Americans begin to expand Negro History Week into a month long celebration, and lobbied the powers- that-be in 1976 to expand Negro History Week into Black History Month. As a result of this push to inculcate Black history into the rubric of American history, most schools across the United States adopted African American history to be included in their school’s curriculum.