Interesting Facts About Black History Month:
Started with a Fraternity
Of all the places for Black History Month to get its start, a college fraternity may seem like a long shot. But that’s just where Black History Month began. Carter Woodson, the son of former slaves and the second black American to receive a degree from Harvard University, urged the Omega Psi Phi fraternity to create Negro History and Literature Week in February. Woodson went on to found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, through which he provided cities and communities materials for black history activities and events. In the 1970s, amid the Black Power Movement, the association changed Negro History Week to Black History Month.
Month of February Holds Symbolic Meaning
Woodson chose the month of February because both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were born in in that month. Lincoln was the U.S. president who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and Douglass was a leading abolitionist of his time.
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