Whitlock: ‘Black History Month’ centers white people, diminishes black people, and undermines America

The final day of Black History Month is the perfect time to analyze the history of the annual event and explore the ramifications of it straying from the vision of its founder.

Carter G. Woodson envisioned the recording of black history as a second Bible, a mimicking of ancient Hebrews’ documentation of the life, times, and impact of Jesus Christ.

In 1915, Woodson, a journalist and author, founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Eleven years later, the association created Negro History Week, the precursor for what we now know as Black History Month.

Woodson argued that the disparate plights of American Indians and Jews could be explained by one group having a written record of its history of accomplishment and the other not. Woodson designated the second week of February as Negro History Week as a way of spreading the gospel of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, the central white and black figures in the emancipation of black slaves. Lincoln and Douglass had mid-February birthdays.