Black History Month is underway. Here are three facts about the yearly occasion

Black History Month is a celebration that began during the Jim Crow era and was made official in 1976 as part of the country's bicentennial festivities. It strives to honor the accomplishments and acknowledge the sacrifices made by African Americans

Before Black History Month, there was Negro History Week

To draw attention to the achievements made by Black people for civilization, Carter G. Woodson, a historian considered as the "father of Black history," launched Negro History Week in 1926. According to the NAACP, Woodson "fervently believed that Black people should be proud of their heritage and [that] all Americans should understand the largely overlooked achievements of Black Americans," as he was at the time only the second Black American after W.E.B. Du Bois to receive a doctorate from Harvard University.

"If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated," Woodson, the son of former slaves, is credited with saying.

A week in February was chosen by Woodson in honor of Frederick Douglass, who was born a slave and preferred to celebrate his birthday on February 14, and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday was on February 12.

According to W. Marvin Dulaney, president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), which Woodson founded in 1915 and is now the official steward of Black History Month, those two people were central to helping to afford Black people the experience of freedom that they have now.

There was a deliberate effort to suppress the teaching of Black history in the decades following the Civil War and during the racial unrest that broke out across the nation in the years after World War I.

In the South, Dulaney claims, they physically distorted the curriculum by trying to hide Black history or African American history in the public schools, particularly regarding topics like Reconstruction and slavery.

According to him, there were hardly any Black studies programs offered at the university level. In 1951, California became the first state to truly require public schools to teach Black history.

According to LaGarrett King, an associate professor of social studies education at the University of Buffalo, you saw an upswing in Black history courses largely as a result of the civil rights and Black awareness movements of the 1960s.

According to King, public schools everywhere developed so many courses and regulations for Black history, therefore starting an unauthorized Black History Month. According to Marcus Hunter, a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Black press also contributed to the idea's advancement. The Baltimore Afro-American, the Philadelphia Tribune, and the Chicago Defender all began to report that they joined the celebration, according to Hunter.

Every year a different topic is introduced

The ASALH selects a different topic for Black History Month every year. The focus is on "Black Resistance" this year.

The ASALH describes this year's theme as follows: "African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression, in all forms, especially the racial terrorism of lynching, racial pogroms, and police killings since our arrival upon these shores." These initiatives have aimed to promote a dignified self-determined existence in a just democratic society in the USA and outside the political authority of the United States.

According to Dulaney, the choice of this year's topic was influenced in part by the extremely sensitive climate around race today. He marks initiatives in states like Alabama, where the State Board of Education voted to restrict how teachers can discuss race in the classroom, and Florida, which recently rejected a new Advanced Placement course covering African American studies, as "a strong retrenchment" against acknowledging Black history. This year's subject felt suitable in light of that.

King agrees that the topic for this year might be perceived as politically offensive by some, but that isn't how it should be interpreted. Instead, he claims, it's an attempt to redefine the discussion of Black history around a notion of empowerment. There is an underlying understanding of oppression when someone engages in resistance, and he claims that some people are unwilling to acknowledge that. Yet, resistance aids in our comprehension of the power that Black people possess in terms of their historical reality, which opposes the victimization notion that many claim drives Black History education, the author writes.

Recent debates on racial education recall a time when Black history was frequently disregarded

Dulaney feels that history is repeating itself as he watches the culture wars rage around the country about how children are taught about race. According to him, recent events, such as the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd as well as the ongoing debate over critical race theory, an academic theory that contends that white people have benefited from institutionalized racism in America, appear to many to be a recurring pattern.

The 72-year-old Dulaney adds, "I grew up in Ohio and we didn't learn about a single African or African American man or woman who had ever done anything in history. Starting in the '60s, through the '70s, we were very successful in integrating African American history of culture into the curriculum."

King anticipates a calming of the current strife over critical race theory. His own belief is that they'll move on to the next politically created controversy, he adds.

According to Hunter of UCLA, the current state of the nation may be seen in that discussion. It actually means there is still much work to be done. The month of Black History has, and will likely continue to be, a catalyst for greater understanding. If people genuinely pay attention to the educational relevance of it, he claims, it delivers a certain measure of optimism about what is achievable.