As we reach the end of the shortest month of the year that white people gave black people to celebrate “their history,” where do we go from here?

Yes, in February 2022, there are black people who believe to this day that Black History Month is in February because it’s the shortest month, and white people were simply pandering to the black community. The number one topic to be discussed in K-12 schools and liberal universities alike is always the trans-Atlantic slave trade. No emphasis on “trade.” Moreover, slavery did not begin there nor was that its end. You wouldn’t believe that after the indoctrination in our public and private colleges and universities.

Black History Month was originally Negro History Week. Dr. Carter G. Woodson, known as the “Father of Black History,” started the first Negro History Week in February 1926. He wanted students to learn of missing contributions that black Americans made.

I want to debunk this portrayal that Black History Month being in February has something to do with white racism. For context, the vast majority of African Americans believe what is right is Democrat and what is wrong is right-wing conservatism.

According to History.com: “[Woodson] chose February because the month contained the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two prominent [Republican] men whose historic achievements African Americans already celebrated. (Lincoln’s birthday was February 12; Douglass, who was formerly enslaved, hadn’t known his actual birthday, but had marked the occasion on February 14.)”

If it weren’t for the vigorous terrain that both Douglass and Lincoln navigated, the Confederacy would have turned the entire republic into a slave nation. These men embodied American symbols of liberty and freedom, but they don’t fit the political narrative of today. President Gerald Ford, also a Republican, is the first president to officially approve Black History Month in 1976.

“Black history” is a misnomer, a misconception, a misstatement, and a misunderstanding. It just doesn’t make any sense. Overlooking “people of color” in the American historical context isn’t resolved by naming certain aspects of history by the color of people.

I’m a proponent that “black history” is not disconnected from American history. From the Underground Railroad to the Civil War to the Emancipation Proclamation to “40 acres and a mule,” our country’s history involves a mixture of ethnicities. Even the 44th president of the United States, who comes from a mixed ethnicity, agrees that history isn’t black or white. He stated:

“Now, we gather to celebrate Black History Month, and from our earliest days, black history has been American history. Black History Month shouldn’t be treated as though it is somehow separate from our collective American history or somehow just boiled down to a compilation of greatest hits from the March on Washington or from some of our sports heroes.”

I wonder: Will our nation live up to the true meaning of its creed, “one nation under God”?