Why I Don’t Celebrate Black History Month

“When we, as a nation, celebrate these heritage months, all that takes place is pandering and more of an unfortunate tendency: dividing people—in the twenty-first century, no less—by race.”

Once again, February is here. That means Super Bowl Sunday and Valentine’s Day. But February is also Black History Month and has been so—nationally—since President Gerald Ford declared it as such in 1976. If the question “What is the purpose of Black History Month?” were posed today, though, how should we answer? Is it to remember and celebrate black heroes? Perhaps it is about commemorating the accomplishments and progress of black Americans. On the surface, Black History Month may appear to be a good way to honor Americans—like me—who are of African descent; however, I have some reservations.

First, let us look at some numbers. In the United States, depending on the state, an average school year ranges from 160 to 180 days, excluding breaks, holidays, and weekends. Next, February is the shortest month of the year. This February, there will only be twenty days in which children will be in school. According to the controversial 1619 Project, the first slaves arrived on August 25, 1619, and this is 2021; how can one cover 402 years in twenty days? That would be covering an average of twenty years every single day of school in February. As the legendary actor Morgan Freeman asked incredulously in an interview, when discussing Black History Month with Mike Wallace, “You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” I feel the same way.

In American history classes, a common starting point is discussing the Jamestown or Plymouth colonies. Students learn about John Rolfe, Pocahontas, Captain Myles Standish, and figures such as these, who lived before the actual founding of the nation. One of the biggest criticisms that Black History Month has received is for its shallowness: Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass. These are the “A-List” black figures that tend to be highlighted during Black History Month. But what about the first black woman doctor in the United States, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler? Or Garrett Morgan, who has saved countless lives due to his invention of the three-position traffic light? What about Alice Allison Dunnigan, the first black woman White House correspondent who had to pay her own way to follow President Harry Truman’s 1948 campaign? The list of black figures and their achievements goes on and on, but they continue to be glossed over by superficial treatments of black history.