WHAT IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH?....

It s the month we celebrate the progress and diversity of African American achievement.In the 1920's Carter G. Woodson, an African American, created and promoted Negro History Week. He chose the month of February becase it included the birthdays of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln.

In a speech at Hampton Institute in 1921 Carter G. Woodson said: "We have a wonderful history behind us. ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, 'You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else'. They will say to you, +Who are you, anyway? Your ancestors have never controlled empires or kingdoms and most of your race have contributed little or nothing to science and philosophy and mathematics."

WHY WE NEED BLACK HISTORY MONTH - ALL YEAR AROUNDby Henry Martey Codjoe
African American historian John Henrik Clarke said a long time ago that, "to control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you."
He also said: "History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. The role of history is to tell a people what they have been, and where they have been, what they are and where they are. The most important role that history plays is that it has the function of telling a people where they still must go and what they still must be." Dr. John Henrik Clarke, African Historian

African American historian Carter Woodson has written about how "the thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies .... To handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst form of lynching. It kills one's aspirations and dooms him to vagabondage and crime".

FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH by Yaw Boateng

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page