Black People - article about Black People

For some people, the term “black people” means people of the negroid race. For others it may be an insult. Most people know that black people, that is, people of the negroid race, are designated in current American culture as “African-Americans”. While that is the respectful reference, “black” is still applied to African-American subjects, such as “black history” or “black scholarship”.

It was not until 1926 that black history was even recognized. Among others, we have Dr. Carter G. Woodson to thank for legitimizing black history as a scholarly endeavor and for rectifying misconceptions about these people and their place in American history.

Dr. Woodson, a son of two former slaves, worked his entire childhood and teenage years in Kentucky coal mines. At age twenty, he entered high school and graduated within two years. He later earned his
Ph. D. at Harvard University.

As an historian, Dr. Woodson was appalled to find that history books had little reference to black people. Even when they were mentioned, black people were always shown in an inferior social position while their positive contributions to society went unacknowledged.

In 1915, Dr Woodson took on the task of creating the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Today, the organization is named the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. A year later, he founded and maintained the highly respected Journal of Negro History. Because people were still uneducated and ignorant about the history of black people, Dr. Woodson launched Negro History week in 1926 as a way to bring attention to the contributions and rich history of the African people.

He chose the second week of February because it marked the birthdays of two men who highly influenced the African-American community, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Coincidently, other important dates in the first two weeks of February included the passing of the fifth amendment, giving black people, among others, the right to vote and the inauguration of the first black senator, Hiram R. Revels. In February, the NAACP was also founded and Malcom X was shot to death on February 2st, 1965.

Today, there is an abundance of information on black people and their rich and significant contribution to American life, economy, politics, society and humanities. Since the revolutionary work of Dr. Martin Luther King and the social upheavals against prejudice and discrimination of the 1960's, the black people of the United States have come into their own. Thanks to people like Dr. Woodson and Dr. Martin Luther King, we are all enriched to know and admire these people we call the black people, the African-American.

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