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Each February, VA joins the entire country in celebrating Black History Month. During this month, we celebrate all Black Americans, Black VA colleagues, and the Black veterans who have served and sacrificed for this nation in every conflict since the American revolution.
It all began with the founder of this celebration, Carter G. Woodson, who believed that truth could not be denied, and that reason would prevail over prejudice. His hopes to raise awareness of Black Americans’ contributions to America were realized when he and the organization he founded, the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, conceived and announced Negro History Week in 1925.
The event was first celebrated during February of 1926, which encompassed the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The response was overwhelming: Black history clubs sprang up; teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils; and progressive whites, not simply white scholars, and philanthropists, stepped forward to endorse the effort.
By the time of Woodson’s death in 1950, Negro History Week had become a central part of African American life and substantial progress had been made in bringing more Americans to appreciate the celebration.
The celebration was expanded to a month in 1976, the nation’s bicentennial. President Gerald R. Ford urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
That year, 50 years after the first celebration, the association held the first Negro History Week. By that time, the entire nation had come to recognize the importance of Black history in the American story.
Since then, every American president has issued Black History Month proclamations. And the association — now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History — continues to promote the study of Black history all year.
VA leads the nation in providing health care services to veterans and celebrates the momentous achievements of Black Americans to the field of health care throughout U.S. history.
Today, VA is helping train future generations of doctors with a goal to increase the number of minority veteran physicians serving at VA facilities. According to OPM statistics, VA is the top employer of Black Americans at federal agencies, representing more than 25% of the VA workforce.
Join us this month as we celebrate and pay tribute to the generations of African Americans who, despite the challenge of adversity, helped pave the way to make our country the nation it is today.
Black History Month historical background adapted from an essay by Daryl Michael Scott, Howard University, for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, available at the Library of Congress.
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