Scholars Defend Black History Month

As Black History Month, created 80 years ago by a Harvard alum, comes under fire from some corners of the African-American community, scholars at the University have come to the defense of the annual February feature.

Carter G. Woodson earned a Ph.D in history from Harvard in 1912—becoming the second black to receive a doctorate from the University. Fourteen years later, he founded Negro History Week, selecting a seven-day span in February that included the Feb. 7 birthday of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the Feb. 12 birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

A half-century later, as Woodson’s invention gained popularity, the week evolved into a full month. But last December, Woodson’s brainchild weathered criticism from actor Morgan Freeman, who suggested that Black History Month should be abolished.

“I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history,” Freeman told CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

“I’m going to stop calling you a white man, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man,” Freeman told CBS’ Mike Wallace.

But scholars and students alike at Harvard insist that Black History Month still plays an important role.

“I don’t want a Black History Month either, because I completely agree that Black history is American history,” wrote Kaya N. Williams ’07, the action committee chair of the Association of Black Harvard Women (ABHW), in an e-mail. “If we could replace those 28 days with 365 days of recognition of the importance of Black History in America, I’d be all for it,” Williams wrote. “But getting rid of Black History Month would just give us 0 days of recognition. And that’d be even worse.”

The chair of the African and African-American Studies Department, Henry Louis Gates Jr., agreed that, “for the time being,” Black History Month is “necessary.”

But, he vowed, “I won’t rest until every day is Black History Month.”

If black history is “relegated to one month, then that’s a terrible thing,” Gates said.

Professor of Anthropology and African and African American Studies J. Lorand Matory ’82 said that Black History Month “teaches us a great deal.” But, he added, “It’s a shame that some institutions need one month to think about it at all.”

Matory said that Black History Month was one of several factors—along with the Civil Rights movement and the diversification of the student body and faculty at universities, that have brought more attention to black history.

There has been a “great deal of improvement and there’s a long way to go,” Matory said.

An economist historian who is a fellow at Harvard’s DuBois Institute, Stanley Engerman, said that Woodson first proposed Negro History Week because “most history discussions didn’t say anything about black history.”

According to Engerman, black history is no longer divorced from American history in history textbooks.

“The goal has really been accomplished,” Engerman said. “It is now more of an ethnic celebration”—akin to St. Patrick’s Day for Irish-Americans and Columbus Day for Italians, Engerman said.

Another historian at the DuBois Institute, James C. McCann, noted that schoolchildren now know the names of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. “That’s real progress,” McCann said.