Cheated Out of History

It’s February, so we are celebrating Black History Month. Next month we will celebrate Women’s History Month. In May, Asian/Pacific American Heritage is celebrated. Pride Month is celebrated in June (notice that most public schools aren’t in session during June). National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from the middle of September to the middle of October. And November is Native American Heritage Month.

Much of what you read below comes from an EdWeek interview (2/2/26) with LaGarrett J. King, professor at the University of Buffalo and the founding director of the university’s Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education.

Black History Month, celebrated since 1976, actually began as Negro History Week back in 1926.

Even though it’s part of Chris Rock’s comedy act – “they gave us the shortest month of the year for Black history” – Black History Month was not a top-down phenomenon. It actually grew from the bottom up, from grassroots organizing and centuries of intellectual and political struggle.

“Early on, Negro History Week and Black History Month were mostly internal to African American communities – not entirely, but mostly. It formed and grew within an expansive segregated world of Black schools, colleges, churches, and institutions across the United States. However, with desegregation, Black History Month would eventually become an instrument used to encourage racial tolerance for those in the United States who didn’t know much about Black people and Black cultures.”

“Things are a bit different now. We live in a society where, for the most part, Black History Month or Negro History Week has always existed for everyone that’s alive. And therefore, the urgency around the work of preserving and teaching Black history hasn’t been as present in more recent decades, at least not the way it was with the early Black history movement, when people had intimate knowledge and memories of Black history being flagrantly absent in every textbook and school curriculum in this country.”

“I think the further we moved away from the period when people had to fight to create and celebrate Black history, the more comfortable our communities became with the idea that knowledge about Black history, for the most part, would always be readily available. But those of us who teach Black studies and African American history have always been aware of the precarious state of Black history’s inclusion in mainstream curricula and public memory. This moment is reminding all of us that this work continues to be both urgent and under attack.”

I used to wonder (and write about) why we couldn’t figure out a way to infuse all this specialized cultural history into the general story of our country. Why did we have to designate specific months to honor Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, women, and gays?

I think LaGarrett J. King has provided me the answer.

Currently those in power aren’t interested in a shared history that emphasizes important contributions from all walks of life, no matter their politics, culture, social background, race, or gender.

To expect Black, Hispanic, Native American, women, and gay history to be included in our story is just too great an expectation. Given the nation we currently live in, full of racism and classism, these special groups should consider themselves lucky to be given one month of focus and celebration.

I remember a question one of my African-American students asked me at the end of February, while we were learning American History,

“What happens tomorrow? Is it Black History Month in March?”

I struggled to find his answer back then.

And I’m still struggling to find his answer today.

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB