Celebration of Black history

Month in America was the Negro History week, established in 1926 by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, founded by Carter G. Woodson, African American historian, writer and journalist.

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Woodson, the second African American to receive a doctorate from Harvard University in 1926, was known as the “Father of Black History.”

He chose February to celebrate Black History for two reasons. February encompassed the birthdays of two great men who played a prominent role in shaping American history President Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and Frederick Douglass, reformer, abolitionist and statesmen (February 14). These two dates had been honored separately by African American communities since the 19th century.

Lincoln, of course, has been honored for his pivotal role in the Emancipation Proclamation. Douglass, a great champion of African American rights, was born a slave in February 1818. He was a self-educated writer, orator, reformer and the foremost black abolitionist of the 19th century.

During the Civil War, Douglass was incensed by the Union government's response to Confederate treatment of Black prisoners of war, who were tortured, killed or sold into slavery. He had scant respect for Lincoln, writing in his publication, The Douglass Monthly, “The slaughter of Blacks taken as captives seem to affect him (Lincoln) as little as the slaughter of cows for the use of his army”. However, after a meeting with Lincoln at the White House, he expressed his admiration of the president's decency and forthrightness, and was confident “that the country would survive both slavery and the war”.