Is studying black history relevant in 2012?

One could presume that since African-American innovations are more visible and greater accepted into popular culture that there is no longer a need to engage in discourse on the topic of black history.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, "Father" of Black History Month

However, had it not been for the vision of impassioned revolutionaries like Dr. Carter G. Woodson, African-American history might have gone undocumented another century.  This is a history that traces all the way back to the first Dutch and Spanish ships with Africans arriving to North America around 1624, but outside of propaganda publications that published hurtful ethnic stereotypes, black history wasn’t documented with regard until the 20^th century.

Dr. Woodson helped us see that black history is American history, not a history only for African-Americans to study. We can look at his life and see the “American Dream” manifesting the way all of us hope it to manifest in our own lives. Who wouldn’t be inspired to know that Woodson’s parents were former slaves and he worked in a Kentucky coalmine for years before he enrolled into high school at age 20, then graduated two years later and went on to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard?  As a student, Woodson observed that information written on people of African descent was either fallacious or intentionally less mentioned, which propagated the idea that blacks were an inferior race. To counter this racist ideology, Woodson began documenting facts himself, and established the Journal of Negro History. In 1926, Dr. Woodson began Negro History Week the second week in February as a way to call attention to the contributions being made by African-Americans.

Do you know these dates significant to Black History? (Courtesy of Infoplease.com)

• February 23, 1868:
  W. E. B. DuBois, important civil rights leader and co-founder of the NAACP, was born.
• February 3, 1870:
  The 15th Amendment was passed, granting blacks the right to vote.
• February 25, 1870:
  The first black U.S. senator, Hiram R. Revels (1822-1901), took his oath of office.
• February 12, 1909:
  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a group of concerned black and white citizens in New York City.
• February 1, 1960:
  In what would become a civil-rights movement milestone, a group of black Greensboro, N.C., college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter.
• February 21, 1965:
  Malcolm X, the militant leader who promoted Black Nationalism, was shot to death by three Black Muslims.

In honor and celebration of Black History Month, The Freedom Center is hosting a debate regarding the value and impact of black history called Why Black History? on February 2.

This session’s panelists include Dr. Francille Rusan Wilson, Associate professor of American Studies & Ethnicity and History at the University of Southern California and Dr. Prince Brown, retired Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northern Kentucky University.

For more details on this free event, which was made possible by PNC, visit the Freedom Center’s event page here:

There is a spark within each of us. Fan the Flame.

Funding for this program was made possible in part by the Ohio Humanities Council with support by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in the program do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment of the Humanities, or of the Ohio Humanities Council.