Black History Month

Overview

Each February, the United States celebrates Black History Month, a national commemoration of the contributions and achievements that Black people have made throughout the history of the United States. 

Every president since Gerald Ford in 1976 has recognized this monthlong celebration, but beginnings of Black History Month date back even further, to the first “Negro History Week” in 1926, an event created by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a founder of an organization that was then-called the Association for Negro Life and History. At the time, few people studied Black history, and it was largely absent from textbooks and the classroom, and Dr. Woodson intended to bring awareness to often overlooked historical events and important figures from the Black community.

The second week of February was chosen by his organization to build upon existing traditions within the Black community of celebrating the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, while also aiming to reform and expand the focus of these celebrations from beyond these two men towards a broader recognition of the entire Black community.

Now a monthlong celebration—not just in the United States but also in places like Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany — Black History Month celebrations today are a reminder of how far things have come since Dr. Woodson first began his work, and also of the progress still to be made.

In 2024, Dr. Woodson’s organization, now called the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), will center their Black History Month celebrations on the theme of “African Americans and the Arts,” to acknowledge that “African American artists have used art to preserve history and community memory as well as for empowerment.”

This month, and all year long, we encourage our students, families, and teachers to explore the resources below to learn more about this important part of our nation’s history and the Black Americans that helped shape the world we all live in today.

Events, Exhibitions, and Places to Visit

• This month, The Ways of Langston Hughes: Griff Davis and Black Artists in the Making exhibit, featuring photographs from the life of Langston Hughes and his contemporaries, is opening at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center. In addition, NYPL and the Schomburg Center have archived exhibitions available online.
• On Thursday, February 15, 2024, the Schomburg Center will also host the 16^th Annual Black History Month Celebration at 6:30 PM, featuring a free concert by the Harlem Chamber Players.
• The New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library will also be hosting events at branches across all five boroughs throughout the month.
• Celebrate at the King Manor Museum with their free program “Hands-On Black History,” on Saturday, February 17, 2024 from 1–4 PM.
• Check out The New-York Historical Society’s will have family programming related to Black History throughout the month. While you’re at the museum, you can see their ongoing installation, “Our Composite Nation: Frederick Douglass’ America,” dedicated to one of the abolitionist’s most famous speeches, accompanied by their  digital family guide. In addition, relevant online exhibitions include Black Dolls and Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow.
• From rebellions led by enslaved people, to the birthplace of hip hop, there is a centuries-long connection between Black History and New York City parks—all month long, you can visit a park where Black history was made and attend events and showcases across the City.
• Take a walk along the Flushing Freedom Mile in Queens to see a number of important historical locations, including multiple sites that were rumored stops along the Underground Railroad.  The In Pursuit of Freedom initiative also has additional walking tours that explore the abolitionist history of Brooklyn throughout different neighborhoods, along with an accompanying PDF guide that provides additional historical context.

Many of these books are readily available via New York’s public libraries, as well as through the Citywide Digital Library available on Sora for our students, where you can also check out the Black History Month: Remembering the Past & Shaping the Future Collection, featuring over 400 titles in e-book and audiobook formats. For even more, the New York Public Library’s “Black Liberation Reading Lists” for Teens and for Kids, curated by the Schomburg Center, has additional titles to enjoy all month long.

The March Trilogy & Other Black History Comics

March is a series of graphic novels by the late Congressman and civil rights activist John Lewis, that many teachers may already be using in their classrooms.

Congressman Lewis also appeared at the New York Historical Society — his last stage appearance in his lifetime — to give a talk to NYC public school teachers and students, which is available to watch on YouTube, and pairs with the “Freedom Now” lesson plan on the March on Washington. For more, we also recommend reading and learning more about “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story,” a civil rights comic originally published in 1957.

NYC Public Schools, in partnership with Good Trouble Comics, has also created several additional comics that are great resources for Black History Month lessons, and all year round:

• “Action Activists” Volume 2, intended for middle school students, tells the stories of historical figures fighting for change, like David Ruggles, an abolitionist in New York City who was a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.
• Volume 1 of "Recognized," a series of LGBTQ+ graphic histories, features the stories of Alain Locke, considered a founding father of the Harlem Renaissance, as well as Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, two transgender activists who were instrumental figures in the Stonewall Riots.  Volume 2 tells the story of Bayard Rustin.
• “Barrier Breaker” is a comic intended for middle and high school students which tells the story of the history making baseball player, Jackie Robinson.
• Volume 1 of “Jali: Literature of Africa and the Diaspora” is a graphic adaptation of a short story by Ethiopian author Haddis Alemayehu, called “When Satiety Marries Avarice, Hunger is Born.” The story, which originally appeared in a 1956 collection of fables, is an allegory for colonialism.
• "Lukasa: History of Africa and the Diaspora" Volume 1 is the first in a series of graphic histories of the Global African Diaspora. This volume tells the story of Olaudah Equiano
• "The Graphic History of Hip Hop" Volume 1 is a unique educational resource that analyzes one of the most important cultural revolutions in the context of urban and world history. 

Video and Audio Resources

• Seizing Freedom is a podcast series that draws on archives of the voices of Black Americans to tell the story of tiny, everyday acts that contributed to the end of slavery in America, telling the “story of the end of the Civil War you’ve probably never been taught.” The Zinn Education Project also has compiled lesson ideas and relevant primary sources into a resource called “Teaching with Seizing Freedom” that educators can use in their classrooms alongside the podcast.
• Hear from speakers on a wide range of topics in a collection of TedTalks to Celebrate Black History Month.
• Learn about pivotal figures from literature, sports, science, and more in the Tell Me More series “Paying Homage to Black History Heroes” from NPR.
• Also from NPR, the "In Black America" podcast profiles a diverse selection of current and historically significant figures to highlight their lives and stories.
• Watch a video on Victor Green, a New York City postal worker, and the creation of the Green Book which helped Black Americans travel safely throughout the era of Jim Crow
• The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum has an informative series called “Storied,” which tells the history of Black people in organized baseball throughout 22 short video episodes. For more learning on this topic, educators may be interested in the lesson plan “The Negro Leagues: Joy, Perseverance, & Pride in Black Spaces.”
• Learn about Seneca Village, an African-American enclave that was once located on the perimeter of Central Park from West 82nd to West 89th Street from 1825 to 1857, and the Williams Family Legacy.
• Learn more about the history and legacy of jazz music from the National Jazz Museum in Harlem with their video series “Harlem Speaks Oral History.” 
• “60 Second Civics” by the Center for Civic Education is a collection of podcasts and videos celebrating Black History Month. The site also includes lesson plans teaching the story of the civil rights movement and the power of nonviolent action to effect change.

Educator Resources

• The 1619 Project: Connections to the Passport to Social Studies and Civics For All Curricula is a resource created by the NYC Public Schools that identifies lessons that can be used to support, amplify, and help students connect and create context for the ideas presented in the New York Times’ 1619 Project, an initiative which marked the 400th anniversary of the arrival of more than 20 Africans at Point Comfort in the Virginia Colony, and which seeks to center the role and agency of African Americans in the larger narrative of United States History.
• The New York Public Library’s  “Schomburg Syllabus” is an archive of new and recent educational resources relating to Black studies, movements, and experiences, organized in 27 different themes ranging from fashion and music to environmental racism and gentrification.
• PBS has a collection of resources for grades 6–12 that includes lesson plans and videos that cover topics ranging from important civil rights anniversaries to discussions about race in current events.
• The  National Archives and Records Administration has a collection of primary and secondary sources, as well as selected resources from other Federal sites such as the National Parks Service and Library of Congress.
• The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture  Learning Lab and their  “Discover the North Star” digital collection contain useful classroom resources that use objects, documents, imagery, and videos from the museum to help students learn about a wide range of subjects.
• Learn about the intersections between education and the Civil Rights Movement through the National Park Service’s  (H)our History Lessons about school desegregation efforts. The NPS also provides informative  “Teaching With Historic Places” lesson plans, including one about the history of the  African Burial Ground National Monument in Manhattan.
• The "In Pursuit of Freedom"  curriculum guide provides a framework to learn about the abolitionist history of Brooklyn throughout the 19th century. Adaptable for students in grades 4–12, the guide contains primary sources that will help students understand the anti-slavery activism taking place there across all walks of life. 
• TeachRock has several lesson plans that explore the influence of Black music and musicians, as well as the context in which these genres and stars emerged.  “Alright” and the History of Black Protest Songs tackles protest songs that defined 20th and 21st century political movements, from Marvin Gaye to Kendrick Lamar, and  The Gospel Origins of “Chain of Fools” tells story of Aretha Franklin bringing soul music into mainstream culture.
• The National Endowment for the Humanities has a Teacher's Guide on  African American History and Culture in the United States, in addition to a large range of lesson plans and  curricula, categorized by appropriate grade level, on various topics related to Black history, from  abolition and Reconstruction to the  New Deal, various movements that emerged in the Civil Rights Era, the history and legacy of African American spirituals and more.
• The New York Times’ Learning Network has an extensive assembly of educational resources, including materials related to the 1619 Project, called  “Celebrating Black History with the New York Times” that contains a collection of historic front pages from the Times dating back to the 1800s, thoughtful essays about topics like how we teach history, relevant culture, sports, and opinion articles, and obituaries for notable Black Americans, among many other helpful primary and secondary sources.
• Several resources on history-making Black women are available from the National Women’s History Museum, including:
  • Investigating Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune: Uncovering Her Legacy Through Inquisitive Inquiry, in which students will evaluate how Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune supported civil rights for women and African Americans, engaged in social activism, and how her legacy still impacts the United States toady.
  • Women’s Rights LAB: Black Women’s Clubs, in which students learn more about Black Women’s Clubs, Mary Church Terrell, and the Women's Suffrage Movement.
  • The Life of Ona Judge, in which students will examine the impact of slavery on African American women, and the historical context of slavery in the American early republic period.
• From Facing History and Ourselves, students can learn about the  Reconstruction Era that followed the Civil War, and the intense and violent political  backlash that followed earlier progress towards racial equity.
• Two crowdsourced curricula, the  #BlackPanther Syllabus and the  #Wakanda Syllabus, are resources curated by scholars to help teach the history of Black power, Black nationalism, and more.
• The Center for Racial Justice has assembled  Resource Guide that is especially useful for educators grappling with questions about why and how to teach about Black history in their own classrooms, and includes several lesson plans and curriculum guides. For additional resources regarding what it means to teach Black History,  Learning For Justice has a resource called “How Are You Teaching Black History?” and  EdWeek has a series called “How to Get Black History Right.”

Hidden Voices

• Hidden Voices: Untold Stories in New York City History, which includes profiles of significant Black figures like Maria Van Angola, Eliza Jennings Graham, David Ruggles, and Elsie Richardson
• Hidden Voices: LGBTQ+ Stories in United States History, which features prominent Black members of the community among its profiles, like Rebecca Primus, Addie Brown, Ma Rainey, Bayard Rustin, and Audre Lorde.
• Hidden Voices: Stories of the Global African Diaspora Volume 1, which delves into the perspectives, experiences, and impact that peoples of African descent have had—and continue to have—on United States and world history.

In addition to these lessons, we regularly feature profiles on history-making individuals who could be considered to be “hidden voices.” During Black History Month, check out our profiles on:

• Maritcha Lyons, a lifelong educator and activist in New York City, who became one of the City's first Black assistant principals. Over the course of her career, Lyons was at the center of many of the nineteenth centuries most important civil rights fights.
• Victor Hugo Green, a postal worker from Harlem who created the “Negro Travelers’ Green Book,” an annual travel and vacation guide published 1936–67 that helped readers identify and travel to businesses that accepted Black customers back during an era where legalized segregation between the races was the norm
• Florence Mills, the groundbreaking Broadway and theater legend who helped break jazz music out of the City’s nightclubs and into popular culture during the Roaring 20s

You can find more of our profiles throughout the year on our Hidden Voices webpage.