 Black History Month is the shortest month of the year. But have you ever wondered why? Why? It might not be the reason you think. But to understand why February, we need to understand why Black History needed a month in the first place. In the early 20th century, there was a little club called the United Daughters of the Confederacy. And their primary mission was to spread their version of history throughout the South, the American school system, and eventually the world. Now you might be wondering what their version of history was. I don't want to put words in their mouth, so let's just take a little break for story time from their 1904 Catechism for Children. And I quote, What was the feeling of slaves towards their masters? They were faithful and devoted and was always ready and willing to serve them. Okay, I'm getting pretty serious. Plantation Princess Propaganda's vibes. And wouldn't you know it? Those garsh darn debutant downers were successful in keeping any real account of slavery from most classrooms for many, many years. But don't worry, because just like Mariah said, then a hero comes along. That's right, a knight in shining armor named Carter G. Woodson pointed out that the school textbooks were leaving out some pretty important parts of the U.S. history, like all the black parts. And if you're wondering if this Carter guy was qualified to criticize education in the U.S., his PhD from Harvard would tell you, do spend a lot of time in the classroom. Well, Carter was the be about it, not talk about it type. So in 1915, he and his buddy Jesse Marlin got together and founded the A-S-A-L-H, a.k.a. The Association for the Study of African-American Life and History. Woo, they couldn't shorten that up. First order of business, create an annual observance honoring black history. Negro History Week was established in 1926. They decided to kick off everything on February 12th. It was the week of Abraham Lincoln's birthday and Patrick Douglas' birthday. And that's how Negro History Week was born. Wait, what? Yep, black history didn't actually get a full month of February until way later. Which brings us to the 1960s. Negro Week was just starting to get some love, but American textbooks still hadn't quite caught on. Put it this way, the most popular eighth-grade history book at that time mentioned two whole black people to represent everything after the Civil War. Fast forward to 1976, after a lot of librarian from Carter and them, the NAACP and some woke mayors, President Gerald Ford officially declared Black History Month a national holiday. Okay, so Black History Month was born and everybody lived heavily ever after. Well, not exactly. A lot of people think black history should be taught year-round. Now, that's a totally reasonable idea. And here's the truth. We've come a long way, but there's still more to do. This is a story by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that most states are flunking when it comes to teaching about the Civil Rights Movement. And there's some states just skipping it all together. So maybe we can all agree to keep our special month on the calendar until students are getting a full story in every American school. It is important that we use this gift of African American History Month to make all of us better, to make ourselves better individually, to make our communities better. Fortunately, most people see Black History Month for what it is. Not only as a way to honor the great contributions of the black community, and there's a lot, but it's also a roadmap to learn from the past, to live out that dream and to inspire the next generation. Because like Maya Angelou said, you can't know where you're going unless you know where you're being. Now that's something to celebrate. Thank you so much for watching. If you like what you saw, go ahead and give this video a thumbs up. And for more from attention, click that subscribe button.