Celebrate African-American History in February on These Top Web Sites

February is the month set aside to celebrate African-American History.

Begun in 1926 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a noted Harvard scholar, it was first organized as Negro History Week and slated to be held during the second week of February, since this was around the same dates as the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, who had a profound effect, historically, upon the black community.

Dr. Woodson's goal was to educate black youth, as well as those outside of their culture, about the positive contributions of black people to America. In 1976, it was decided to expand the celebration to an entire month, instead of trying to compress so much information into a mere week.

African-American/Black History Month has not been without its critics from both ends of the spectrum. There are some white people who resent what they believe is its "exclusivity" and they feel it is being forced upon them, while there are some black people who feel that black history ought to be properly weaved into basic American history, instead of being taught for one month and then ignored during the other eleven months of the year.

Whatever your take is on African-American/Black History Month, it does accomplish its mission of reminding all Americans that people of color have done some good things for America. There is often so much media attention on the negative actions of some black people that the unenlightened in our country generalize about the entire black community, based on this sometimes biased information. It's important that we all be made aware that African-Americans have played a vital role in education, medicine, science, politics, literature, drama and fine arts, not just the fields of sports and music.

Some websites that may assist young people in learning more about African-American/Black History Month are:

Black History Month Biographies by Thomson Gale
http://www.gale.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/index.htm

February is Black History Month.

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