The history of Black History Month

Brut America

Black History Month just started. But for some, the shortest month of the year isn't enough to get the job done...

Transcript

00:00It's never the end of Black History Month.

00:03It's every month. It's all year.

00:23During Black History Month, that's really what we celebrate.

00:27We celebrate the people who have shaped our heritage.

00:30We remember those who struggled for our rights and our freedoms

00:33and we reflect on how far we've come and how much farther we have to go.

00:59Black History Month comes about during Jim Crow in America.

01:08So there's a lot of African-American organizations coming about.

01:12The National Association of the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP,

01:16is created in the 1910s.

01:18And Dr. Carter G. Woodson capitalizes on that in the shadows of Jim Crow.

01:23He's talking about the past, writing down the history, right?

01:27Because American history at that time really didn't include African-American people

01:32other than the acknowledgement of slavery.

01:57Because American history in America had basically said that African-American people

02:15up until the end of slavery and after were only good for work and labor.

02:19They had no culture, no identity.

02:21There was no characteristics of the race.

02:24And so I think Dr. Carter G. Woodson does by educating children is creating racial pride

02:29and racial identity that would push the children to go on and do these things

02:34like Martin Luther King or John Lewis.

02:55The Civil Rights Movement does not take off until young people get involved, right?

03:01So you have the Greensboro sit-ins where they're sitting at the lunch counters protesting.

03:06And those are the students who would have probably been in school

03:09during the first iterations of Negro History Week.

03:12They pushed the president.

03:13They pushed the government.

03:14Because really, although it could be a communal celebration,

03:18I think delineating it as a nation really set it aside.

03:24The 58th annual Black History Month,

03:42a celebration of the part that black Americans have played in building our great country.

03:47The story of black Americans is one of valor in the face of hardship.

03:51The theme of this year's African-American History Month is

03:54From Slavery to Freedom, Africans in the Americas.

03:58Look at him. He's right there.

04:01That's me?

04:03Yes.

04:04And I'm here to celebrate black history.

04:08Yes, exactly.

04:28I don't want a Black History Month.

04:31Black history is American history.

04:33Black History Month shouldn't be treated as though it is somehow separate from

04:37our collective American history.

04:40There are well-meaning attempts to do that all around us,

04:42from classrooms to corporate ad campaigns,

04:45but we know that this should be more than just

04:50a commemoration of particular events.

04:57Until African-American people are no longer considered other or outside of the

05:13American fold, that we can have to have Black History Month.

05:17We are not like other ethnic groups that have, you know, you can't go to the,

05:21I can't go to Ireland and look up my history and find my roots.

05:25And so as people in the diaspora, we have to cling to it and hold on to it

05:29and be the ones who say, okay, this is important.

05:31It must be preserved because if not, we'll be lost in the pages of history.

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