Mamalicious!

Please join my friend, Yvette (over at Six Impossible Things…) and I as we celebrate Black History Month with a blogathon. You read it right: We’ll be blogging all things–well, many things– Black for 32 consecutive days, Feb. 1 - March 3.

Why 32 days? As many black folks have wryly observed–some with tongues planted in cheeks, some without–”they” picked the shortest month of the year to celebrate our contributions. In truth, “they” didn’t pick February at all:

Black History Month was established in 1976 by Afro-Americans for the Study of Afro-American Life and History.^[1] The month-long celebration was an expansion of Negro History Week, which was established in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, director of what was then known as the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Woodson selected the week in February that embraced the birthdays of both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. –from wikipedia.com

Still, Yvette and I thought, why not throw in a few extra days? Black folks’ contributions to U.S. history and world history certainly aren’t suffering from a surfeit of p.r.

So, we invite interested bloggers to climb on the 32 Days of Black History bandwagon. We’ve got a range of topics and formats lined up–from social commentary, book reviews, arts and culture, and our personal family histories and reflections, to memes and trivia (”Are You Smarter Than a Black Fifth Grader?”). Also, throughout the month, we’ll have some guest bloggers take over our spots and bring us their BHM-related musings and analyses.

On a given day, Yvette and I will be posting on roughly the same topic, but other 32 Days… bloggers aren’t obligated to follow our game plan. We’re just looking for camaraderie. For all participating bloggers, we’ll cross-promote our collective efforts.

Interested? Drop me a line in the comments, and I’ll be in touch with more details. Also…please spread the word to readers and fellow bloggers!

More from the wiki article:

[Negro History Week/Black History Month] may have had its origins in the separate efforts of Mary Church Terrell, a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the African American collegiate fraternity Omega Phi Psi. The former had begun the practice of honoring Frederick Douglass on February 14, the date he used to mark his birth. The Omegas established a “Negro Achievement Week” in 1924. Woodson was friends with Mary Church Terrell and worked with her and the National Council of Colored Women to preserve Douglass’ home and personal papers. Woodson was also a member of Omega Psi Phi.

While Terrell’s celebration of Douglass was a local event and the Omega Achievement Week was part of their community outreach, Woodson broadened the scope of the celebration in three significant ways. First, he conceived of the event as a national celebration, sending out a circular to groups across the United States. Secondly, he sought to appeal to both whites and blacks and to improve race relations. For this reason, he chose President Lincoln’s birthday as well as Douglass’. Finally, Woodson viewed Negro History Week as an extension of ASNLH’s effort to demonstrate to the world that Africans and peoples of African descent had contributed to the advance of history.

Each year, ASNLH would select a national theme and provide scholarly and popular materials to focus the nation’s “study” of Negro history. As such, Negro History Week was conceived as a means of undermining the foundation of the idea of black inferiority through popular information grounded in scholarship. The theme, chosen by the founders of Black History Month, for 2007 is “From Slavery to Freedom, Africans in the Americas.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 10:15 pm and is filed under 32 Days of Black History, Blogging, Cool Stuff, Friends, Fun Times, Race Matters, Wordsmithin'. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.