Black History Month has become a familiar holiday to those living in 2022. Every February, the government has set aside 28 days to celebrate and praise the achievements of the Black community.

The celebration began when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History initially proposed the idea of “Negro History Week” in 1926. They had chosen the first week in February to hold their holiday, because it fit in just before the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

The week-long celebration of Black achievement met with a mediocre response from the public school system, however. While it enjoyed the cooperation of several states, as well as the District of Columbia, it didn’t gain acceptance everywhere. Despite this, Woodson believed it was a great step forward and made plans to hold the observance every year. The week gained popularity slowly, and mainly among states with a large Black population.

During the following decade, Woodson used the observance to counter the Southern idea of the “lost cause” of the Civil War. This was a common theme in the South, wherein people touted that slaves had been well-treated and that the Southern states had been forced to fight a war of Yankee aggression.

As the decades rolled forward, Negro History Week saw an increase in popularity as mayors across the country began to call for its celebration. By the latter part of the 1960s, buoyed by the Civil Rights Movement, Negro History Week had begun to shift into Black History Month on many college campuses.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford gave the holiday official recognition, telling the American people to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

Throughout its history, each Black History Month has carried a specific theme. This year, the theme is “Black Health and Wellness,” and will take a closer look at Black scholars and medical practitioners in Western medicine.