Disclaimer: the word “Negro” is used in this article in a historical context, but we would like to note that this term is outdated and offensive.
Celebrated each year during the month of February, Black History Month is a time for recognizing and honoring the achievements and the vital role of Black people in history. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially acknowledged February as Black History Month, with then-president of the U.S. Gerald Ford being the first to recognize it. Many countries have joined the United States in this celebration of Black history, such as Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Each year, Black History Month has a theme specific to the year. 2022’s theme is Black Health and Wellness, to commemorate scholars in medicine and health care workers. This is especially appropriate as we launch into our third year consumed by the COVID-19 pandemic, a time that has negatively impacted minority communities and heavily burdened Black health care providers.
Black History Month, as we now know it, was a long time coming. It’s considered to have all begun with the accomplished historian Carter G. Woodson, who changed the insufficient amount of information on the history and culture of Black people by co-founding the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) in 1916, since changed to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).
The group proclaimed February’s second week as “Negro History Week” in 1926; prior to this, not many people studied Black history and it was kept out of historical textbooks.
The chosen week includes the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and an abolitionist, Frederick Douglass. Both were pivotal in the Abolitionist Movement; Abraham Lincoln, under his rule as U.S. president, issued the Emancipation Proclamation which stated that all enslaved people “are, and henceforward shall be free.” Meanwhile, Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery, had been an important activist and public speaker. His speeches and books were staples in the history of this movement.
In 1976, Gerald Ford extended this week to a month, and Negro History Week turned into Black History Month. So we present to you, this Black History Month, 8 Black people who shaped our world.
1. Martin Luther King Jr.
Image: Julian Wasser
One of the most well-known activists in the civil rights movement, being its leader, was Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968). His prominent activism and inspirational speeches played an integral role in the creation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, as well as the overall abolishment of the legal segregation of Black Americans.
2. Marsha P. Johnson
Image: Netflix
Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson (1945-1992) — yes, that’s actually what the “P” stands for — really did pay it no mind. As an African American transgender woman, she was a revolutionary activist for LGBTQ+ rights. She’s considered to have been one of the main leaders of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, and, along with Sylvia Rivera, she founded the Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR), an organization dedicated to helping the homeless transgender youth of New York City.
3. Maya Angelou
Image: Jack Sotomayor
Maya Angelou (1928-2014) was an author, actress, poet, and civil rights activist. Her most famous work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (a memoir published in 1969) made her the first African American woman to have a non-fiction bestseller. Her literary achievements earned her many awards throughout her life, two of which are NAACP Image Awards in the outstanding literary work (non-fiction) category — one in 2005 and one in 2009.
4. Claudette Colvin
Image: Alamy
Before Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin (1939-). On March 2nd, 1955, 15-year-old Colvin got arrested when she refused to give up her seat for a white woman. “It’s my constitutional right to sit here as much as that lady. I paid my fare, it’s my constitutional right,” is what she said to the bus driver on that day. Her story was not as widespread as that of Rosa Parks; she was a teenage girl who later got pregnant, and this was considered a “bad look” for the civil rights movement.
5. Bayard Rustin
Image: Anthony Camerano
Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was an activist and one of the early members of the civil rights movement. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was an advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. throughout his work in the movement. He was actually the one who organized the famous March on Washington in 1963. Despite being unwanted as a face of the movement due to him being openly gay (something he was arrested for multiple times) and having ties to communism, Rustin contributed many things in the shadows.
6. Harriet Tubman
Image: CBS News
Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) was born into slavery, but in 1849 escaped to the North. She saved countless people, all while risking her life, by leading hundreds of families to freedom through the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War (although she had been an abolitionist prior to it), Tubman was a spy for the Union Army and assisted them in many other ways. After the war finished, she was devoted to supporting and aiding formerly enslaved people who were living in poverty.
7. Shirley Chisholm
Image: Don Hogan Charles
The United States Congress is becoming more diverse with every election, but it wasn’t as easy for Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) back in the ‘60s, which is around the time of the civil rights movement. In 1968, she became the first Black congresswoman, representing New York in the House of Representatives. In 1972, her campaign for president made her the first Black candidate of a major party to make a bid for the presidency of the U.S. She fought for social justice and equal opportunities in education throughout her political career.
8. Gordon Parks
Image: The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (1912-2006) was a distinguished photographer and the first African American staff member of both Vogue and LIFE magazines. He also worked in filmmaking, and his hit movie Shaft made him the first major black director in Hollywood. He has also published several novels. In 1999, he told LIFE, “I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.”
This list includes just 8 Black people who changed the world, but there are so many more. It’s crucial to remember, as we near the end of February, that while Black History Month is an important celebration, Black history is not something that can be boiled down to one single month; it’s something we should recognize and honor all year long.
Welcome to the TMC 