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Top 10 Facts about Black History Month in the US

Black contribution to history and culture is all too often forgotten or erased from the history books. Black History Month attempts to ensure that the achievements of black communities across the globe are remembered and celebrated. The Black or African American population was 39.9 million people in 2020. That鈥檚 12.1% of the 331.4 million people living in the United States that year. Black History Month honors the contributions of African Americans to U.S. history. American historian Carter G. Woodson established Black History Week nearly a century ago to spotlight the accomplishments of African Americans. It was first celebrated during the second week of February in 1926 to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and abolitionist/editor Frederick Douglass (February 14). In 1976, as part of the nation鈥檚 bicentennial, the week was expanded to a month.

Since then, U.S. presidents have proclaimed February National African American History Month. Black History Month takes place in February and is a month-long celebration of the wide breadth of history, contributions, and achievements of African Americans. Among the prominent figures are Madam C.J. Walker, who was the first U.S. woman to become a self-made millionaire; George Washington Carver, who created nearly 300 products from the peanut and Rosa Parks, who sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and galvanized the civil rights movement. Begun nearly 100 years ago as a weeklong event, Black History Month is now a month-long celebration of Black influence around the world. Read on for more Black history facts.

1.  Black History Month Began in 1926 as Negro History Week

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The celebration of Black History Month began as 鈥淣egro History Week,鈥� which was created in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, a noted African American historian, scholar, educator and publisher. At the time of Negro History Week’s launch in 1926, Woodson believed the teaching of Black history was key to the physical and intellectual survival of the race within society: “If a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated,” he said in part, as the Journal of Negro History reported. The month of February was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. The civil rights movement of the 1960s helped elevate Negro History Week to national prominence and turn it into a month-long celebration.

However, despite its forerunner, Negro History Week, originating all the way back in 1926, Black History Month as we know it today didn鈥檛 become nationally recognized until the 1970s. Black students and educators at Kent State first celebrated Black History Month in January also February of 1970, other educational institutions started following suit. As a result, in 1976, President Gerald Ford made things official, proclaiming February to be Black History Month which was fifty years after the first celebrations. President Ford officially recognized Black History Month at the country’s 1976 bicentennial. Ford called on Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history,”

2. Carter Woodson is The Father of Black History

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Carter G. Woodson was tireless in his lobbying to establish Negro History Week as a program to encourage the study of African-American history. Woodson was an African American historian who graduated from Harvard with a Ph.D. and founded the event to highlight the history, lives and contributions of Black Americans to American society in 1926. He dedicated his career to the subject and wrote many books on the topic. His most famous volume is The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), which is required reading at numerous colleges and universities. According to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), which was founded by Woodson, “Black teachers in segregated public elementary and secondary schools engaged their students in an array of festivities鈥攑lays, pageants, reciting of speeches, essay contests, concerts, and other events.”

3. Why is Black History Month Held in February?

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Negro History Week used to be held on the second week of February and the reason was to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Woodson wanted to honor President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, who were both born in February. President Lincoln was the 16^th U.S. president who paved the way for the abolition of slavery with his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Frederick Douglass escaped from American slavery in 1838 to become a renowned abolitionist, speaker, and writer. He wrote several speeches and books, including “A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”. The month of February was picked for Black History Month because it contained the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, and Douglass, a former slave who did not know his precise birthday, celebrated his date of birth in February

4.  It Honours African-American Men and Women

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The White House defines Black History Month as 鈥渂oth a celebration and a powerful reminder that Black History is American history鈥�. Black History Month was created to focus attention on the contributions of African Americans to the United States. It honors all Black people from all periods of U.S. history, from the enslaved people first brought over from Africa in the early 17th century to African Americans living in the United States today. The Month also honors the contribution and legacy of activists, politicians and civil rights pioneers, including Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks, among others. Not forgetting trailblazers to inventors, Olympians and politicians, numerous Black historical figures have left their marks on American history for decades. Unfortunately, a lot of their accomplishments are unsung and under-acknowledged. You don鈥檛 have to look far to notice the many impressive achievements of black men and women in the fields of science, politics, law, sports, entertainment, and many others.

5. Black History Month Themes Are Chosen by ASALH

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The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) has celebrated Negro History Week and Black History Month for 95 years. Each year, ASALH selects an overarching theme for Black History Month. This year’s theme for Black History Month was Black Health and Wellness. “This theme acknowledged the legacy of not only Black scholars and medical practitioners in Western medicine, but also other ways of knowing (e.g., birthworkers, doulas, midwives, naturopaths, herbalists, etc.) throughout the African Diaspora. The 2022 theme considered activities, rituals and initiatives that Black communities had done to be well.” Scores of events across the country 鈥� in cities, in communities, on college campuses, and more were scheduled for the month. Past themes have included the family, Black migrations, and Black women in American culture and history, among others.

6. Civil Rights Leaders Helped Popularize Black History Month

Rosa Parks being fingerprinted on February 22, 1956, by Lieutenant D.H. Lackey as one of the people indicted as leaders of the Montgomery bus boycott. Image by Adam Cuerden from

In addition to Carter G. Woodson many civil rights activists and protestors contributed to Black history, including Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Mary White Ovington, and Martin Luther King Jr. Sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, a founding member of the civil rights organization the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was a prominent Black intellectual who wrote extensively on Black struggles. He described Black Americans as experiencers of double consciousness, which describes the “twoness” of the African American identity. In 1957, United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Until then, the federal government hadn’t passed civil rights legislation since Reconstruction when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 established a federal Civil Rights Commission to investigate and discipline those who practice discrimination, as well as the Civil Rights Section of the Department of Justice, which applies federal statutes to protect underserved Americans from discrimination.

7.  The Crucial Role of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was established in 1909. It is America鈥檚 oldest and largest civil rights organization. It was founded in 1909 by W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, and Mary White Ovington and is recognized as the United States鈥� oldest civil rights organization. The establishment of the NAACP was largely inspired by the 1908 Springfield, Illinois Race Riot and Du Bois鈥� Niagara Movement for civil rights, which began in 1905. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the association led the black civil rights struggle in fighting injustices such as the denial of voting rights, racial violence, discrimination in employment and segregated public facilities.

Dedicated to the goal of an integrated society, the national leadership has always been interracial, although the membership has remained predominantly African American. At the time of Martin Luther King, Jr.鈥檚 birth in 1929, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was already the largest and most influential civil rights organization in the United States. King鈥檚 father, Martin Luther King, Sr., was on the executive committee of Atlanta鈥檚 NAACP branch; and in 1944, King, Jr., chaired the youth membership committee of the Atlanta NAACP Youth Council. Although King believed in the power of nonviolent direct action, he understood that it worked best when paired with the litigation and lobbying efforts of the NAACP.

8.  Many National Organizations Sponsor Black History Month

ASALH partners with corporations, schools, community groups, publishers, universities, cultural institutions, and many other organizations.  ASALH and its partners seek to promote, research, preserve, interpret and disseminate information about Black life, history and culture to the global community through cooperation and collaboration. By promoting the study, research and teaching of the history and culture of African Americans, the organization and its members were addressing civil rights by challenging the lies, myths and distorted history that supported racial discrimination, segregation, and violence against African Americans. Black History Month is sponsored at the national level by the National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Gallery of Art, the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the National Archives and Records Administration, and many other prominent organizations. Every February these organizations honor Black history with commemorative events.

9. Black History Month is also Celebrated Outside of the United States

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Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada and more recently has been observed in Ireland and the United Kingdom. In 1995, Dr. Jean Augustine a Black Canadian member of Parliament founded Black History Month in Canada. Celebrations take place in February, similar to those held in the United States. Augustine is thus known as the “Mother of Black History Month” in Canada. In Canada, Black History Month is seen as an opportunity to celebrate 鈥渢he achievements and contributions of Black Canadians and their communities who have done so much to take make Canada a culturally diverse, compassionate, and prosperous country鈥�. In the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, Black History Month takes place in October. While the UK’s initial focus was on Black American history, the country now focuses on celebrating Black British history. This national celebration aims to promote and celebrate Black contributions to British society, and to foster an understanding of Black history in general.

10.  Jazz Music and the Civil Rights Movement

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It is an African鈥� American musical form born out of the blues, ragtime and marching bands that originated in Louisiana during the turn of the 19th century. 鈥淛azz鈥� is a slang term that at one point alluded to a sexual act. The music genre grew from a distinctively African American sensibility and had a critical role in the Civil Rights Movement and was integral to African American history. The music genre was born from the work songs of enslaved Black people during a time when community and self-expression were of the utmost importance. Centuries later, while governments and individuals attempted to silence the Black political voice, jazz became an outlet. In 1939, Billie Holiday鈥檚 rendition of Abel Meeropol鈥檚 poem, 鈥淪trange Fruit鈥�, described the horrors of Jim Crow-era lynching. The song is often considered the first and most influential jazz protest song. In the late 1950s, jazz musicians became outspoken activists and started creating the soundtrack for the Civil Rights Movement. Record labels and television networks attempted to silence these artists and occasionally succeeded. Jazz songwriters, like Nina Simone and Charles Mingus, were undeterred by the opposition, and used their lyrics to further the movement. The foundations of modern music are built on jazz music i.e. rock n鈥� roll, R&B and soul all have their roots in the genre. April is National Jazz Appreciation Month.  Jazz remains a highly celebrated art form and inspires artists in other genres to this day.

Forty years after Ford’s recognition of Black History Month, then-President Barack Obama delivered this message, in part, from the White House: “Black History Month shouldn’t be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes 鈥� It’s about the lived, shared experience of all African Americans.”