Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by African Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of blacks in U.S. history. Also known as African American History Month, the event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history.

“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,” Woodson said of the need for such study.

In 1926, Woodson and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History(ASALH) launched a “Negro History Week” to bring attention to his mission and help school systems coordinate their focus on the topic. Woodson chose the second week in February, as it encompassed both Frederick Douglass’ birthday on February 14 and Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on February 12.

Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history.

Decsription from:

History.com Editors. “Black History Month.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 14 Jan. 2010, www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month.

Zorthian, Julia. “Black History Month: How It Started and Why It's in February.” Time, Time, 29 Jan. 2016, time.com/4197928/history-black-history-month/.

Cover ArtCarter G. Woodson by Burnis R. Morris

Call Number: 973.049 W898zm 2017
This study reveals how historian Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) used the black press and modern public relations techniques to popularize black history during the first half of the twentieth century. Explanations for Woodson's success with the modern black history movement usually include his training, deep-rooted principles, and single-minded determination. Often overlooked, however, is Woodson's skillful use of newspapers in developing and executing a public education campaign built on truth, accuracy, fairness, and education. Burnis R. Morris explains how Woodson attracted mostly favorable news coverage for his history movement due to his deep understanding of the newspapers' business and editorial models as well as his public relations skills, which helped him merge the interests of the black press with his cause. Woodson's publicity tactics, combined with access to the audiences granted him by the press, enabled him to drive the black history movement--particularly observance of Negro History Week and fundraising activities. Morris analyzes Woodson's periodicals, newspaper articles, letters, and other archived documents describing Woodson's partnership with the black press and his role as a publicist. This rarely explored side of Woodson, who was often called the "Father of Black History," reintroduces Woodson's lost image as a leading cultural icon who used his celebrity in multiple roles as an opinion journalist, newsmaker, and publicist of black history to bring veneration to a disrespected subject. During his active professional career, 1915-1950, Woodson merged his interests and the interests of the black newspapers. His cause became their cause.
 
Cover ArtBlack Pioneers by William Loren Katz
Call Number: 977.004 K19b
Out of a past little noted in history texts comes this tale of African American pioneers in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. These pathfinders were slaves, poets, runaways, missionaries, farmers, teachers, and soldiers. For these African Americans, the frontier meant freedom, and from the earliest times, some seized liberty by joining Indian nations.As Southern slaveholders tried to pass laws to make slavery legal in the West and territorial legislatures wrote "Black Laws" that limited basic rights to white settlers, African American pioneers became freedom fighters. From Ohio to Kansas they battled slavehunters and developed Underground Railroad stations. Black families built their own schools and churches and created unique forms of protest to ensure their advancement.Historian William Loren Katz reveals a frontier saga that has often been buried, glossed over, or lost.
 
Cover ArtThe Black Campus Movement by Ibram H. Rogers
Call Number: 378.198 R726b 2012
This book provides the first national study of this intense and challenging struggle which disrupted and refashioned institutions in almost every state. It also illuminates the context for one of the most transformative educational movements in American history through a history of black higher education and black student activism before 1965.

 
 
Cover ArtAnd Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
Call Number: 821 A584a Copy 3
Maya Angelou's unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS's American Masters.   Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.   Thus begins "Phenomenal Woman," just one of the beloved poems collected here in Maya Angelou's third book of verse. These poems are powerful, distinctive, and fresh--and, as always, full of the lifting rhythms of love and remembering. And Still I Rise is written from the heart, a celebration of life as only Maya Angelou has discovered it.   "It is true poetry she is writing," M.F.K. Fisher has observed, "not just rhythm, the beat, rhymes. I find it very moving and at times beautiful. It has an innate purity about it, unquenchable dignity. . . . It is astounding, flabbergasting, to recognize it, in all the words I read every day and night . . . it gives me heart, to hear so clearly the caged bird singing and to understand her notes."
 
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The Black 100 by Columbus Salley
Call Number: 973.049 S168b 1993
"Who are the most influential African-Americans that ever lived?" "Any such list is subject to passionate discussion and debate. It is within this controversy that readers are educated about the full breadth and depth of the African-American experience." "After extensive thought and research author and educator Dr. Columbus Salley has selected the 100 most influential African-Americans of all time, and then ranked them according to their contributions to the struggle for equality." "As a result, the Black 100 is a unique compendium of the most significant African-Americans, past and present. Dr. Salley identifies 100 black women and men as the collective giants on whose shoulders African-Americans stand in their unending quest for full economic, political and social equality." "The Black 100 is not a debate on the "most talented" or "most famous" Black Americans, but is a listing - and ranking - of those who have had the greatest impact on the progress toward complete participation in our society. Here are the 100 who have fundamentally altered the ways in which millions of Americans - of all races - live today." "It is fascinating to read how the author ranks the influence of some personalities as opposed to others. Who is first? Who is last? And why? The list of names in The Black 100 reads like a history of African-Americans over nearly 400 years. To name just a few: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, James Baldwin, Booker T. Washington, Fannie Lou Hamer, Muhammad Ali, Bill Cosby." "Dr. Salley reveals the unique contributions of each of the 100 to African-American history." "The Black 100 is one of the most provocative and informative books ever written on this subject. It will be endlessly debated, discussed and scrutinized. A compellingly readable contribution to an understanding of our history, it will prove to be an essential book for all students and teachers in the field - as well as for a vast reading public of all colors - for many years to come."