The question that faces us today is whether or not Black History Month is still relevant? Is it still a vehicle for change? Or has it simply become one more school assignment that has limited meaning for children. Ultimately Woodson believed Negro History Week-which became Black History Month in 1976-would be a vehicle for racial transformation forever. His other goal was to increase the visibility of black life and history, at a time when few newspapers, books, and universities took notice of the black community, except to dwell upon the negative. In essence, Woodson-by celebrating heroic black figures-be they inventors, entertainers, or soldiers-hoped to prove our worth, and by proving our worth-he believed that equality would soon follow. One was to use history to prove to white America that blacks had played important roles in the creation of America and thereby deserve to be treated equally as citizens. Woodson hoped to build upon this creativity and further stimulate interest through Negro History Week. And artists like Aaron Douglass, Richmond Barthé, and Lois Jones created images that celebrated blackness and provided more positive images of the African American experience. The 1920s saw the rise in interest in African American culture that was represented by the Harlem Renaissance where writers like Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglass Johnson, Claude McKay-wrote about the joys and sorrows of blackness, and musicians like Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Jimmy Lunceford captured the new rhythms of the cities created in part by the thousands of southern blacks who migrated to urban centers like Chicago. It is important to realize that Negro History Week was not born in a vacuum. Woodson chose the second week of February in order to celebrate the birthday of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. This impatience led Woodson to create Negro History Week in 1926, to ensure that school children be exposed to black history.
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