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.”

The wise words of Carter G. Woodson grow in the fertile soil of Black History Month, a time of celebration that he founded.

This year marks the 38th anniversary since heroes of African American ancestry began being recognized.
Year after year, we read the bios of historical, legendary figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, and the same people we’ve been learning, well hearing, about year after year after year.
This throbbing repetition of “history” has long since passed its prime.

Of course, the “I Have a Dream” speech and the story of Rosa Parks’ bus ride will forever be groundbreaking moments, but focusing mainly on the same familiar facts generation after generation hinders understanding the true significance of history.

Understanding the the sequence of event in our country’s history is a challenge all in its own.
How many believe that the Civil Rights Era is the same as the Civil War? Or believe Benjamin Franklin was a president? Or have no clue what rights are guaranteed in the First Amendment?

Basic information about American history is sometimes not comprehended. Imagine how hard it is to learn black history when all that’s taught are trivial facts.

In the 2014 semifinals of college “Jeopardy,” three white students avoided answering questions from the Black History Month category until there were no other options left.

They were stumped when subjects like the Scottsboro boys and the 1st Rhode Island Regiment appeared.
They answered three of the five questions correctly.

The sad fact is, it’s not entirely their fault.

How can we blame them for not knowing such crucial information when in 2005, the only state that required African American history to be taught as a graduation requirement was Pennsylvania, “More than a Month,” a documentary on ending Black History Month, showed. The 2013 release of the movie unraveled a 38 year long struggle for equality in education and in society.

“Get them! Get their black asses!” Educator and activist Walt Palmer relives the 1967 walkout in Philadelphia schools where he and his fellow student peers fought for black studies to be included in the curriculum. “I told them fight. Fight ‘em. Fight back.” They won the battle, but why so much almost 40 years later?

The politics of history undermine equality. The textbooks we’re given cover only what the state wants. That translates into American, and even world, history being Eurocentric.

Students are stripped of learning African American history as if it’s not a part of history at all. We never get the chance to recognize the contributions of African Americans as serious parts of American history.

African American history is viewed as being separate from American history. It is viewed as less valuable, less worthy of learning. African American history is a footnote that is so minute that we must go out of our way to find information that we don’t already know.

There should be no month dedicated to a race because all that means is it’s not considered to be important enough to be taught in all other months of the year.

A man on the street in the documentary said it best, “We’re here 365 days a year and on leap year 366, so should our history.”

History is history — white, black, or polka dotted. This struggle of races has lasted centuries.
The fact that blacks have gone from being worthless to society, to having a president in the White House shows that there is no distinction in success.

So why not allow the history to be taught?