Black History Month 2027

About Black History Month

Black History Month sets aside February to study and celebrate the people, events and ideas Black Americans have contributed to the nation's story, from science, business and politics to music, sport and the civil rights movement. Schools, libraries, museums and federal agencies plan exhibits, lectures and lesson plans around it every year.

Its roots go back to Carter G. Woodson, a historian who founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 (today the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, or ASALH). In 1926 he launched Negro History Week, placing it in the second week of February so it would include the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, which Black communities already celebrated. The week drew wider attention over the following decades, and during the civil rights era activists carried it onto college campuses across the country.

On February 10, 1976, during the nation's Bicentennial, Gerald Ford became the first president to formally recognize Black History Month, urging Americans to honor accomplishments that had too often been neglected. In 1986 Congress passed a law designating February as National Black History Month, and presidents have regularly issued February proclamations since, many under the name National African American History Month. ASALH still chooses a theme for each year.

Other countries keep their own versions. Canada's House of Commons recognized February as Black History Month in December 1995 after a motion by Jean Augustine, the first Black woman elected to Parliament, and the Senate followed in 2008 with a motion from Senator Donald Oliver. The United Kingdom marks it in October, a tradition that began in London in 1987 with Ghanaian-born organizer Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, and Ireland has held an October observance since a 2010 start in Cork. The dates on this page follow the US calendar.

Sources: National Archives, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library: Recognition of Black History Month, American Presidency Project: Ford's Message on the Observance of Black History Month, February 1976, Government of Canada: About Black History Month, Black History Month (Library of Congress and partner institutions). How we check dates.

How to mark Black History Month

• Read a book by a Black historian or author, such as Woodson's own The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), and discuss it with a friend or book group.
• Explore the online collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, or visit a local museum or historic site devoted to Black history.
• Look up this year's ASALH theme and build a family, classroom or workplace project around it.
• Record an oral history with an older relative or neighbor about the changes they have lived through, and save it for your family.
• Attend a community lecture, concert or film screening, or support a Black-owned business in your area.

Black History Month dates