A Rutgers expert discusses the origins of Black History Month and how its purpose has evolved
Black History Month begins Feb. 1, marking 100 years since historian Carter G. Woodson helped launch a national effort to recognize and teach Black history in the United States, and 50 years since the observance was formally recognized at the federal level.
This year's theme, "A Century of Black History Commemorations," announced by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, reflects how that early initiative grew into a monthlong observance recognized today.
David Greenberg, a Distinguished Professor of journalism and media studies and history and author of John Lewis: A Life, a 2025 Pulitzer Prize finalist in biography, discusses the origins of Black History Month, how its mission has evolved over the past century, and why the observance continues to matter today.
From your perspective as a historian, what is Black History Month meant to accomplish today, and how has that purpose evolved over time?
More and more, the teaching of Black history is being woven into schools' regular curricula, and more Americans are growing up with a sense of the centrality of race to our national story.
In that sense, we are coming closer to Carter Woodson's vision of Black history as something that we all should know about and study. Still, it remains useful to have one month of the year when there is a special effort to highlight aspects of African-American history - whether it is a series of events at your local library, showcased recommendations from your favorite streaming service, a unit in your second-grade class, or something else along those lines.
Black History Month is sometimes criticized as tokenistic, but if done right it can inculcate an interest that people carry with them at all times.
Carter G. Woodson believed that Black history was central to understanding the American story. What was he hoping to accomplish through the early national commemorations of Black history, and how did he envision its role in education and public understanding?
Woodson was a pioneer in establishing the field of Black history and launching many of the vehicles for its study. "Negro History Week," as it was then called (the term was not considered derogatory), dates from the 1920s - a time of rising Black political consciousness and, at least in the North, growing political freedom and representation for African Americans.
At the time, Blacks celebrated Lincoln's birthday, as well as the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, but Woodson envisioned something wider, that would help educate schoolchildren and the public at large.
Notably, Woodson never considered a single week to be adequate for the study of the Black past, and in time it grew into Black History Month. But Woodson also insisted that understanding African American history should be a year-round pursuit.
When President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, what goals motivated his decision to expand the observance from a week to a month?
During the bicentennial celebration of 1975-1976, there were many efforts to recognize, commemorate, and learn about the American past.
People today may think that "inclusion" is a recent concept, but it's not. It was in the 1960s that the study of history, both in the academy and among the public, was dramatically transformed to include much more attention to the Black experience, as well as that of women and other minorities. So, it was only natural that the bicentennial should be an occasion for highlighting the importance of Black Americans and of race in our national story.
Ford was a conservative, but he shared the postwar liberal consensus on race that there should be no discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or sex. It was the Association for the Study of African American Life - the organization Woodson founded - that called on Ford to recognize Black History Month, which he did with a presidential statement.
In 1986, Congress passed Public Law 99-244, formally establishing February as National Black (Afro-American) History Month. That November, John Lewis was first elected to Congress. Did he regard the new law as potentially effective? Why?
In my biography of John Lewis, I make the argument that he was, especially in his congressional years, a "public historian."
By that, I mean that he was devoted to preserving and promoting knowledge about history, including Black history. In all kinds of ways, he used his position as a U.S. congressman to remind people about the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement as well as about Black history in general.
For example, he was the driving force for years to create the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. He also led annual pilgrimages over the Edmund Pettus Bridge at Selma to commemorate the struggle for the Voting Rights Act. And he was also a big proponent of Black History Month.
Did John Lewis personally celebrate Black History Month and, if so, how?
I found an interview in which he talked about how much he enjoyed "Negro History Week" when he was a schoolboy. Lewis always had a sense of racial pride, and he was an avid reader as a child. He loved reading biographies of all kinds, but especially of notable African Americans like Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.
As a teenager, he became a regular reader of many Black newspapers, which his school library subscribed to. So, yes, the week, and later the month, always had meaning for him. As a congressman, he was always speaking at various events during Black History Month.
What are some of the most meaningful ways Americans can celebrate Black History Month in 2026?
The month has always had an educational component to it, so I think one thing people can do is attend lectures and seminars, read books about Black history (I can recommend some good biographies), or watch documentaries about the Black experience.
This February, PBS will air Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates' new documentary on the history of Blacks and Jews in fighting for civil rights. That's one I'm eager to watch.
