University Libraries

How did Black History Month get started? JSTOR, a database Roesch Library subscribes, features a brief but interesting article on their JSTOR Daily detailing the origins of Black History Month. I discovered that Carter G. Woodson started the documentation of Black History in 1926. The United States Government has officially recognized February as Black History Month for nearly 40 years now. Why February? Read below of what Woodson printed:

“Not to know what one’s race has done in former times is to continue always a child,” he wrote in a pamphlet advertising the first “Negro History Week” in February 1926. “If a race has no history, if it has no worth-while tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”

To read more click on the JSTOR Daily Link. The link includes citations. Image courtesy of JSTOR.

- Patricia Meinking, Acquisitions Assistant