Welcome back to the Learn English podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
My name is Dr. C and I'm a TESL certified English teacher.
I teach English online to students who are learning it as a second language.
I created this podcast with the goal of it becoming a resource for you to help you with your vocabulary, fluency, and knowledge of American culture.
If you look in the description of this episode or any of our previous episodes, you will find a vocabulary list.
This list includes the words and phrases that are used in this episode along with their definitions so you can understand what these words and phrases mean and how to use them in conversation.
With that, let's begin.
It is February when this episode is coming out, which means that it is Black History Month in the United States and in Canada.
The history of the United States is complicated when it comes to race.
Black History Month is a month that is designated every year to highlight the accomplishments and the cultural significance of Black Americans here in the United States.
And as I said, it is also celebrated in Canada to do the same thing.
I want to start off with the history of Black History Month and why it was determined that it needed to be celebrated.
The origins of Black History Month go back to 1915.
I talked about this time period briefly when I did my introduction to Martin Luther King episode.
Martin Luther King was born around this time period in the United States, and he was exposed to the racism and discrimination that was around him during this time.
This period of time did not look like the United States that we now know today.
It was significantly different, and African Americans experienced significant racial discrimination and harassment.
They were also, in general, left out of any type of history curriculum.
They were not studied.
People did not know about the contributions and accomplishments that Black Americans had achieved.
There was a historian named Carter G.
Woodson. He helped to co -found the Association for the Study of Negro Life in History to try to help overcome this glaring omission.
He believed that the works and achievements of African Americans were very important and that they should be studied and known by the general public.
Woodson wanted to create a dedicated space to help highlight these Black achievements and challenge the dominant historical narrative that only focused on the contributions of white Americans.
Woodson reached his vision in 1926 when the first Black History Month was observed.
The reason that February was selected was because it is the birth month of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
Now, we don't have time to go into these two characters in this episode, but I promise you they will get their own episodes in the future.
If you don't know who they are, a brief description.
Abraham Lincoln was a president of the United States.
He was the 14th president, and he was the president during the Civil War.
He is also the president who abolished slavery in the United States, which means that he is the one who decreed that it was illegal to have slaves in the United States.
Frederick Douglass was a former slave who gained his freedom and became a prominent activist in the anti -slavery movement.
He gave speeches and became very involved with trying to get slavery outlawed.
You can actually read his autobiography.
It is one of the more common books that American high school students have to read, and it is the autobiography of Frederick Douglass.
I would recommend reading it if you are interested to know more about his life.
And again, we will discuss them in their own episodes in the future.
From 1926 on, Black History Month began to spread and began to be celebrated by more people.
Groups and African American groups in particular would have festivals, they would have speeches, they would have speakers come in, and they would really try to highlight the history of Black Americans.
It wasn't, however, until the 1960s when people decided that it should be more widespread and it should be recognized throughout the United States.
We talked about this in our introduction to Martin Luther King, but the 1960s was a very transformative decade here in the U .S.
This was the time period where African American leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.
really fought for Black Americans to have the same rights as white Americans.
This is called the Civil Rights Movement, and it is one of the most important pieces of history in here in the U .S.
Because of the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement and all these activists who are fighting for African Americans to be recognized and to be further incorporated into the U .S.
culture, people started to realize that Black History Month was important.
It was important to talk about the Black experience in the U .S.
to talk about the history and the accomplishments of Black Americans.
This kept gaining momentum, and in 1976, Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month.
He urged Americans to, quote, seize the opportunity to honor the too often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.
February was chosen to be the month to celebrate Black History Month to keep the connection to the original Black History Week in 1926.
Black History Month serves multiple purposes.
One is to highlight the often overlooked achievements of African Americans in literature, science, art, and mathematics.
Although African American citizens have had great impact in these areas, their stories are often not told.
They do not have books and TV shows and movies written about their accomplishments in the same way that white citizens have.
Just think of the TV shows and movies that you are familiar with that have come out of the United States.
How many of them have focused on historical Black figures compared to historical white figures?
In general, the accomplishments of white citizens are the history and the stories that we highlight, and we tend to neglect the same stories and the same accomplishments that African Americans have achieved.
Another purpose of the month is to help overcome racial stereotypes and preconceptions that we have about people.
This month shows the accomplishments that African Americans have had, and is trying to fight the stereotypes that they don't have the same achievements or that they're somehow different from their white counterparts.
This is supposed to help counteract any stereotypes that people might have about African American accomplishments and show that we are all equal then that we can have a more inclusive and just society.
Another purpose of the month is to show the struggles and the historical obstacles that African Americans have overcome in the United States.
As I said before, there were some very dark, embarrassing, disgusting periods of United States history where African Americans were mistreated, where they were harassed, where they were discriminated against.
Although it is hard to discuss these, although it is difficult to acknowledge that this existed in the United States that we know today, it's important to acknowledge this history, because that way we can make sure we don't repeat it, and that we understand how far we have come as a society from where we
were 100 or 200 years ago.
Although Black History Month is generally well received, there of course are always some people who disagree with it.
One of the arguments that has been made is that there should not be a Black History Month because that means that African American stories in history is relegated to one month.
What that means is that although people focus on Black History in the month of February, they ignore it for the other 11 months of the year.
Instead, the argument is that if we put African American stories in our history books, if we made TV shows and movies, if we had the same cultural awareness as we do with white citizens, there would not be a need for Black History Month.
If we had these stories in our general cultural knowledge and in our historical knowledge, we could get rid of Black History Month because this would just be the general history of the United States and not just be Black History and not just be focused on one month.
Another argument is that it divides people because it separates all of the history of Black Americans into one month, and it creates this otherism.
As we say, it creates a separate category for Black history from our general American history or from white citizen history.
Therefore, people argue that we should have it all as one and have it as an American history instead of separating it by race.
Although I understand the criticism and I understand that not everyone is a fan of Black History Month, I would say in general, it is well received and it is well celebrated.
When you watch TV, you will see advertisements and acknowledgments of Black History Month.
There are special TV screenings and movie screenings that will occur during this time.
Those movies and TV shows are the ones that highlight the Black experience and Black history in the United States.
There's also a lot of cultural events.
Black organizations will have festivals which can include dancing, singing, poetry readings, lectures, etc.
You can have special speakers, guest speakers come in and talk about Black history.
In museums, you will also get special exhibits.
For example, you will have photography or art that is made by Black artists and these special exhibits are for the month to show the accomplishments and the artistic creations of these Black artists.
When it comes to universities, usually the Black student organizations will have some type of guest speaker come in to do guest lectures or speeches.
They also can sometimes have symposiums or dialogues where they are trying to encourage conversation between people, to have people talk about race relations and try to determine how to better deal with racism, how to better break down stereotypes and how to better become more inclusive and a more accepting
population and have people of different races have better interactions and relationships with each other.
You'll also see advertisements to visit Black -owned businesses, so people who are African -American who own a business, you'll see more stories highlighting their businesses and encouraging people to go to their shop, their establishment and buy something or somehow support their business so they can keep
working and being a local business in the community.
I hope you learned a little bit about Black History Month and why it is such an important month here in the United States.
I hope you learned a little bit about the history, why it's celebrated and how it is celebrated.
We will be continuing to talk about Black History Month and celebrate the month in future episodes.
If you have an idea or a request for an episode, please let me know in the comments.
Tell me about it so I know what you want to hear and what you would like to focus on.
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