{"id":79202,"date":"2025-02-07T19:05:23","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T00:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/?p=79202"},"modified":"2025-02-07T15:47:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T20:47:17","slug":"what-happens-to-history-when-african-american-history-month-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/?p=79202","title":{"rendered":"What Happens to Black History When African American History Month is Over?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Detail of Unsung Founders Memorial by Melinda Stuart via Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have very mixed feelings about National African American History Month, also called Black History Month, which is why I haven\u2019t added posts to my blog during February. Historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History suggested the week that became the month of February\u2019s annual observance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. Since the history of African Americans has been the hidden and marginalized history of the United States of America, I believe there should be full integration of African Americans in American history. I wonder if giving the history of African Americans one month on the calendar and \u201cAmerican History\u201d all year all the time further marginalizes the significant people, events, contributions, and sacrifices February is supposed to celebrate.<\/p>\n

Some say take the month and really celebrate; others say you can\u2019t, in just a month\u2019s time, celebrate or even tell how America became America on the backs of people who still struggle for respect and a fair share of her riches. \u00a0I raise these issues, though I don\u2019t pretend to have the definitive answer to this historical equity dilemma. I choose to share what I know and what I find out about Black History in America\u2014my history\u2014throughout the year.<\/p>\n

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Belle da Costa Greene by Paul Cesar Helleu c. 1913<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is so much we don\u2019t know about ourselves that even with one daily revelation, I doubt we\u2019d ever run out of people, events, contributions and sacrifices to share.\u00a0In just this past year, I wrote about Eugene Jacque Bullard<\/a>, Maggie Lena Walker, Belle da Costa Greene<\/a>, and important places like Richmond\u2019s Jackson Ward<\/a> and Evergreen Cemetery<\/a>, just from the research I uncovered while writing my novel, Provenance<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Detail of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Veterans Day I wrote about the military prowess of African-Americans in America\u2019s fight for freedom\u2014from the Revolutionary War to today<\/a>. I rejoiced when Provenance<\/em> was a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley Award<\/a> in 2016 because it was an honor to place in a competition named for the first published African American female writer.\u00a0 And I said goodbye to Barack Obama<\/a>, a Black man and one of the greatest Presidents the United States has ever had. I wish we had a president with his character and values today.<\/p>\n

So, as I said before, there is too much history for a mere month. As I discover more about myself and our country, I plan to use this space to write about America in all our colorful glory whenever the spirit and the history move me, be it February or any other month.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have very mixed feelings about National African American History Month, also called Black History Month, which is why I haven\u2019t added posts to my blog during February. Historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History suggested the week that became the month of February\u2019s annual observance of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[146,201,155],"tags":[150],"class_list":["post-79202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-african-american-history","category-american-history","category-black-history-month","tag-black-history-month"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79202"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83488,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79202\/revisions\/83488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/donnadrewsawyer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}