Every February people in the United States celebrate the achievements and history of African Americans as part of Black History Month or African-American History Month.

In 1915 Carter G. Woodson co-founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. In1926, the group declared the second week in February as “Negro History Week” to recognize the contributions of African Americans to U.S. history.

This week was chosen because it includes the birthday of both Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist, and former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln led the United States during the Civil War, which was primarily fought over the enslavement of Black people.

In 1976 Black History Week became Black History Month by President Gerald Ford when he extended the recognition. Today the celebration is celebrated by other countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Today Black History Month continues the discussion of Black people and their contributions through activities such as museum exhibits and film screenings, etc. and by encouraging the study of achievements by African Americans year-round.

Each year the ASALH (Association for the Study of African American Life and History) selects a new theme for Black History Month. The 2024 theme is “African Americans and the Arts.”

African American art is fused with African Caribbean and Black American-lived experiences. In the fields of visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression.

African Americans have made significant contributions to arts in America either as performing or practicing. Think American arts and think African American: Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” and Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration of the Negro.”

In the early 1920s there was a movement called “Harlem Renaissance.” The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York spanning the 1920s and 1930s.