Noted African-American actor Morgan Freeman reportedly disapproves of having a national “black history” month, but nevertheless, Bakersfield College plans to continue the tradition of acknowledging February as the month for celebrating the African-American heritage with a speaking series of educators from Tuskegee, Morehouse and Bennett Colleges as well as other institutions.
Black History Month branched out from African-American historian and educator Carter G. Woodson’s Negro History Week, which he started in 1926 marking the second week in February as a tribute to the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and orator Frederick Douglass.
However, even Woodson reportedly remarked that he wanted the week commending the achievements of African Americans to eventually be extirpated so that African-American history could be more readily incorporated into mainstream American history. Actor Morgan Freeman reportedly concurs with Woodson. Furthermore, expanding the tribute from a week to a month, according to Freeman, is not sufficient.
“You’re going to relegate my history to a month?” Freeman said on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.”
According to BC history professor Ishmael Kimbrough, African-American history has come a long way from the days when only “great, white, male leaders,” as Kimbrough puts it, were acknowledged.
The white male perspective had always taken the forefront in history, according to Kimbrough, who teaches African-American history as well as History 17A and 17B. Kimbrough said that black history did not receive proper acknowledgement until the late ’60s and early ’70s. Black history, Kimbrough stated, should be “incorporated into American history and should not be a separate footnote.” Furthermore, Kimbrough said, “by 2006, we should have gotten past tokenism.”