The month of February is designated as Black History, or African-American History Month. However, it shares that spotlight with American Heart Month, An Affair to Remember Month, Canned Food Month, and National Cherry Month, among others.
Dedicating one month to Black American history has become increasingly controversia of late. One of the most notable critics is Morgan Freeman, the renowned African-American actor, who in an interview with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, expressed the opinion that the nation should not relegate the history of African-Americans to only one month a year.
While Freeman’s perception carries some validity, it may be important to gain some perspective on the foundations of Black History Month to appreciate its value within America’s history.
African-American History Month, or Black History Month, was established in 1976, but it was developed upon the foundation of Negro History Week, established fifty years earlier by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. The original intent in creating Negro History Week was to rectify what Dr. Woodson considered an injustice.
He recognized that the history of African Americans had been distorted, ignored, or was missing entirely from U.S. history texts.
As a historian, Dr. Carter G. Woodson perceived very real gaps in the complete story of America and responded to the need to correct inaccurate information by digging up the neglected history of African Americans that had been buried in the dust of the past.
However, before he took up the cause of developing the serious study of black history, there was a general indifference, and in some cases, deliberate neglect among historians with regard to black history.
Education was Dr. Woodson’s life. He pursued an education as the means of climbing out of poverty, dedicating himself to the mission of helping to educate all Americans about the history of African Americans. Along his path to receiving a PhD from Harvard University, he took serious note of the distorted information and misrepresentations, or the lack of written information available to the general public regarding African Americans in U.S. history.
Carter Godwin Woodson, whose parents were former slaves, was born into a large, poor family in New Canton, Virginia where he was denied unrestricted access to education in Virginia, finding it difficult to regularly attend school.
However, through self-instruction, he was able to grasp the basics of a primary school education. His family moving to West Virginia he eventually entered high school at the age of 20. He obtained his diploma within two years, taught school locally after his graduation, and in 1900, became the principal of the high school from which he graduated.
Woodson eventually went on to earn a master's degree in European history from the University of Chicago, and ultimately completed his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1912. He was the first student whose parents were former slaves and the second black American (W. E. B. DuBois was the first) to receive a doctorate from Harvard.
Upon completion of his education, Woodson took up the cause of filling the obvious void and correcting the misinformation prevalent in the history of African Americans in the U.S. Dr. Woodson explained that African American contributions "were overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them." His intent was to overcome this and encourage other academics and scholars to begin to earnestly study such history and to ensure that schools taught it.
He wrote several books on the subject and by 1915, Woodson co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. A year later, he began the publication of the Journal of Negro History which was renamed the Journal of African American History in 2002. Ten years later, after lobbying schools and various organizations to participate, he created Negro History Week as a way of promoting the awareness of African American history to the general public. He selected the second week in February, to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Because of his efforts, historians consider Carter G. Woodson the father of Black History. Over the years, his Negro History Week evolved into what is now Black History Month, celebrated each February since 1976. That is why today it is virtually impossible to find a U.S. History textbook that makes no reference to black history and why students across the country from the elementary school level to the college level study the history of African Americans as part of American history.
According to historian John H. Franklin, Dr. Woodson “continued to express hope that Negro History Week would outlive its usefulness.” In many respects, it is possible that Black History Month has fulfilled what Dr. Woodson set out to do and in that light, perhaps it has outlived its usefulness. Morgan Freeman may be right when he states that Black history is just one part of American history and Dr. Woodson probably would have agreed if he had lived into the twenty first century. –Dennis Jamison/Washington Times/February 2, 2012
Dedicating one month to Black American history has become increasingly controversia of late. One of the most notable critics is Morgan Freeman, the renowned African-American actor, who in an interview with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, expressed the opinion that the nation should not relegate the history of African-Americans to only one month a year.
While Freeman’s perception carries some validity, it may be important to gain some perspective on the foundations of Black History Month to appreciate its value within America’s history.
African-American History Month, or Black History Month, was established in 1976, but it was developed upon the foundation of Negro History Week, established fifty years earlier by Dr. Carter G. Woodson. The original intent in creating Negro History Week was to rectify what Dr. Woodson considered an injustice.
He recognized that the history of African Americans had been distorted, ignored, or was missing entirely from U.S. history texts.
As a historian, Dr. Carter G. Woodson perceived very real gaps in the complete story of America and responded to the need to correct inaccurate information by digging up the neglected history of African Americans that had been buried in the dust of the past.
However, before he took up the cause of developing the serious study of black history, there was a general indifference, and in some cases, deliberate neglect among historians with regard to black history.
Education was Dr. Woodson’s life. He pursued an education as the means of climbing out of poverty, dedicating himself to the mission of helping to educate all Americans about the history of African Americans. Along his path to receiving a PhD from Harvard University, he took serious note of the distorted information and misrepresentations, or the lack of written information available to the general public regarding African Americans in U.S. history.
Carter Godwin Woodson, whose parents were former slaves, was born into a large, poor family in New Canton, Virginia where he was denied unrestricted access to education in Virginia, finding it difficult to regularly attend school.
However, through self-instruction, he was able to grasp the basics of a primary school education. His family moving to West Virginia he eventually entered high school at the age of 20. He obtained his diploma within two years, taught school locally after his graduation, and in 1900, became the principal of the high school from which he graduated.
Woodson eventually went on to earn a master's degree in European history from the University of Chicago, and ultimately completed his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1912. He was the first student whose parents were former slaves and the second black American (W. E. B. DuBois was the first) to receive a doctorate from Harvard.
Upon completion of his education, Woodson took up the cause of filling the obvious void and correcting the misinformation prevalent in the history of African Americans in the U.S. Dr. Woodson explained that African American contributions "were overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them." His intent was to overcome this and encourage other academics and scholars to begin to earnestly study such history and to ensure that schools taught it.
He wrote several books on the subject and by 1915, Woodson co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. A year later, he began the publication of the Journal of Negro History which was renamed the Journal of African American History in 2002. Ten years later, after lobbying schools and various organizations to participate, he created Negro History Week as a way of promoting the awareness of African American history to the general public. He selected the second week in February, to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Because of his efforts, historians consider Carter G. Woodson the father of Black History. Over the years, his Negro History Week evolved into what is now Black History Month, celebrated each February since 1976. That is why today it is virtually impossible to find a U.S. History textbook that makes no reference to black history and why students across the country from the elementary school level to the college level study the history of African Americans as part of American history.
According to historian John H. Franklin, Dr. Woodson “continued to express hope that Negro History Week would outlive its usefulness.” In many respects, it is possible that Black History Month has fulfilled what Dr. Woodson set out to do and in that light, perhaps it has outlived its usefulness. Morgan Freeman may be right when he states that Black history is just one part of American history and Dr. Woodson probably would have agreed if he had lived into the twenty first century. –Dennis Jamison/Washington Times/February 2, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment