Black History Month Becoming What It Was Meant to Correct

Concentrating Black history into the shortest month of the year strips it of context, says professor.

Published on Feb. 18, 2026

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A century after Carter G. Woodson founded what became Black History Month, his warning about an education system that reproduces violence through omission and distortion remains an unanswered charge. The author, an associate professor at George Mason University, argues that Black history is not a commodity to be confined to one month, but a foundation for understanding American life that is often stripped from textbooks and curricula.

Why it matters

Woodson understood that schooling was never neutral; it was designed to produce obedience, hierarchy and consent. A century later, the author says, we are still living with the consequences of that miseducation, where Black students are made to feel they don't belong and white students are educated to hate.

The details

The author grew up immersed in Black history in a predominantly Black, middle-class neighborhood, where Blackness was normalized. But when she attended a junior high school across town, where she was one of only a few Black students, Blackness became something to explain, defend, and survive. Most Black students in America never get that opportunity. The author now teaches art history and African and African American studies, and encounters students who are stunned by how much they were never taught about Black history and resistance.

  • Carter G. Woodson founded Negro History Week in 1926, which later became Black History Month.
  • Woodson's book "The Mis-education of the Negro" was published in 1933.

The players

Carter G. Woodson

One of the first Black Americans to earn a PhD from Harvard University, he founded Negro History Week in 1926, which later became Black History Month, because he understood that if Black people appeared in textbooks only as enslaved or inferior, violence against them would always feel justified.

LaNitra M. Berger

An associate professor of history and art history and director of African and African American Studies at George Mason University, who studies Black-Jewish relations in art and is the author of "Irma Stern and the Racial Paradox of South African Modern Art: Audacities of Color."

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What they’re saying

“There would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom.”

— Carter G. Woodson ("The Mis-education of the Negro")

“Blackness became something to explain, to defend, to survive.”

— LaNitra M. Berger, Associate Professor, George Mason University (USA TODAY)

The takeaway

Black history is not a commodity to be confined to one month, but a foundation for understanding American life that is often stripped from textbooks and curricula. Restoring this history is essential for creating a more just and equitable education system.