Johnson: Hey, white people, it’s not too late to celebrate Black History Month with us
This is an opinion column.
This may seem late, seven days into Black History Month, but it’s not. It’s never too late to do what must be done, what we all should do — you, too, white folks. It’s never too late to celebrate Black History Month.
Never too late to educate and remind ourselves and our children of the substantial contributions made by African Americans to this nation.
Never too late to acknowledge the plethora of Black Alabamians who sacrificed to change our state and nation.
Never too late to reinforce that Black history is history. And it has never been more vital, more imperative that we all do so.
Even the president said — or signed one of those quadrillion executive orders saying — it’s okay. (Please read the previous sentence with the full eye-roll like-I-care tone with which it was written.)
To help you celebrate, I’ve pulled together a calendar of Black history facts, one for each day of February, courtesy of Blackfacts.com. But first, some history.
It was 101 years ago today, in fact — Feb. 7, 1926 — that historian Carter G. Woodson, the Virginia-born son of formerly enslaved parents who became a celebrated author and historian, declared the second week of February as “Negro History Week”. He chose that time on the calendar because it coincided with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass (Feb. 14) and Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12), which many Blacks across America were already celebrating.
Woodson initially hoped for NHW to be a coordinated teaching opportunity in partnership with public schools nationwide. Early on, though, departments of education in just a few states (North Carolina, Delaware and West Virginia) and cities (Baltimore, New York, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia) embraced the concept and initiated it in classrooms.
This undated photo provided by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) shows historian and author Carter G. Woodson. (ASALH via AP)Association for the Study of African American Life and History
Mostly, though, NHW was stifled by decades of resistance and indifference.
Not until 1970 was Black History Month first celebrated, on the campus of Kent State University. It took years for it to finally be integrated into many school calendars and curriculums and in 1976, Gerald Ford became the first U.S. President to acknowledge BHM. In a proclamation, he wrote: “We can seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of [Black] Americans in every phase of endeavor throughout our history.”
Now, our accomplishments — our history — are again under attack.
Last March, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a bill declaring it illegal to teach “divisive concepts” in K-12 schools. The law, which went into effect last October, cited eight divisive areas, including race.
Yet it’s still Black History Month.
And as Donald Trump with one hand signed the order last week expressing his “gratitude” for our contributions to this nation, with the other he pacified insecure white men and cost a lot of white women their jobs by pouring whiteout over efforts to diversify, foster equitable opportunity or be inclusive. Anywhere.
Check that order; it may have been signed with invisible ink.
To help you celebrate, here, courtesy of Blackfacts.com, is a Black history fact for each day of the month:
Feb. 1 — Happy birthday, famed Harlem Renaissance writer/poet Langston Hughes (born 1901, died 1967)
Feb. 2 — In 1862, The District of Columbia abolished enslavement.
Feb. 3 — In 1956, Autherine Lucy became the first Black student to enter the University of Alabama.
Feb. 4 — Happy birthday Tuskegee native and catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott Rosa Parks! (born 1913, died 2005)
Feb. 5 — Happy birthday Mobile native and baseball icon Hank Aaron! (born 1934, died 2021)
Feb. 7 — Woodson created Black History Week in 1926.
Feb. 8 — In 1944, Harry S. Alpin of the Atlanta Daily World was the first Black journalist admitted to a White House press conference.
Feb. 9 — In 1995, Bernard Harris became the first African American to walk in space.
Feb. 10 — In 1989, Ron Brown of Mississippi was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the first Black to lead a major political party.
Feb. 11 — In 1958, Ruth C. Taylor became the first Black flight attendant in the U.S. A trained nurse, she was the only African American hired by Mohawk Airlines among 800 Black applicants.
Feb. 12 — In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in New York.
Feb. 13 — In 1892, less than a year after the opening of Carnegie Hall, the World’s Fair Colored Opera Company, featuring soprano Matilda Sissieretta Jones, became the Black performers to appear on its stage.
Feb. 14 — In 1965, Malcolm X spoke on the “Language of Violence” at Ford Auditorium in Detroit. (Read the speech here.) It would be his last. The following week he was assassinated as he began to speak at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.
Feb. 15 — In 1968, Henry Lewis became the first African American symphony orchestra conductor when he was named to lead the New Jersey Symphony.
Feb. 16 — In 1923, Bessie Smith, who recorded more than 150 songs, made her first recording, “Down Hearted Blues.” It sold 800,000 copies for Columbia Records.
Feb. 17 — Onward, jazz legend Thelonius Monk (born 1917, died 1982).
Feb. 18 — Happy birthday, Dr. Dre! (1965)
Feb. 19 — In 1942, the Tuskegee Airmen were initiated into the U.S. armed forces, making them the first Black pilots to fly in World War II.
Feb. 20 — Happy Birthday, Sidney Pointier (1927, died 2022)
Feb. 21 — Happy Birthday, Troy native and Congressman John Lewis (1940; died 2020)
Feb. 22 — Acclaimed initially as the first professional painter in British Columbia, Grafton Tyler Brown, born free in Pennsylvania in 1841, was later heralded as the first Black artist in the Pacific Northwest and a respected cartographer. Alas, being light-skinned he was often seen as white, which Brown did not dispute because it allowed him to skirt through some of the racist hiring restrictions of the day.
Feb. 23 — In 1870, Congress readmitted Mississippi to the Union on the condition that it never disenfranchise Black voters. Happy birthday, W.E.B. DuBois (1868, died 1963)
Feb. 24 — In 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African-American woman to earn an M.D. in the U. S.
Feb. 25 — In 1837, Cheyney University in Pennsylvania was founded to become the first historically Black college.
Feb. 26 — In 1969, the 15th Amendment guaranteeing the right to vote to all citizens was sent to the states for ratification. It was ratified almost a year later, on Feb. 3, 1870.
Feb. 27 — In 1869, John Willis Menard rose from his seat in the chamber of the U.S. Congress to defend his status as the first African American elected to the institution, thus becoming the first Black to address Congress. Alas, he was denied the seat and returned to Florida where he became a school superintendent.
Feb. 28 — In 1984, Michael Jackson won eight Grammys for “Thriller.”
If you didn’t know, now you know. Or you should by the end of the month.
Let’s be better tomorrow than we are today. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, Instagram @roysj and BlueSky.