Carter G. Woodson – “The Father of Black History”
The phrase “Black Lives Matter” still seems controversial or even exclusive to many white people. Yet it serves as a vivid reminder of the various forms of racial injustice (police brutality, education, housing, health care, mass incarceration, wealth gap, etc.) faced by Black people in our nation today. Until we recognize and address these, we cannot say with integrity that “All Lives Matter.” Similarly, this month of February is a vivid reminder that “Black History Matters.” What we now know as Black History Month started as Negro History Week in 1926. At a time of pervasive and oppressive Jim Crow segregation, Dr. Carter G. Woodson chose the second week of February to lift up the overlooked accomplishments of African Americans in American history. The particular week was chosen because it includes the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. The following quote by Dr. Woodson illustrates what was at stake in this effort to help people realize that Black history is American history:
As another has well said, to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching…It is strange, then, that the friends of truth and the promoters of freedom have not risen up against the present propaganda in the schools and crushed it. (From The Mis-Education of the Negro)
By 1976, Negro History Week officially became Black History Month. The short video below summarizes the development of this important annual emphasis on the struggles, perseverance, and accomplishments of Black people in American history. While Black history has become a regular feature of public education, this has not been the case in much of the white church. The ministry of Cornelius Corps is committed to lifting up the gifts, struggles, and accomplishments of Black people in the history of our nation and of the church in America. This is one way of proclaiming that all of us are made in the image of God and are of infinite value regardless of the unjust social construct throughout American history that we call “race.” Until we eliminate racial injustice in our nation and in the church, this month is a necessary reminder that Black History Matters.