The Three Types of Black History Month Stories

With Black History Month arriving, it seems clear to me that there are three basic types of stories being told. Some are promoted far more heavily than others.

Black History Month began in 1926 with Negro History Week, started by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, a Harvard‑trained historian and the second Black American to earn a PhD from Harvard. He created Negro History Week because Black history was almost entirely absent from American education. White historians openly argued that Black people had “no history” worth teaching, and Black achievements were systematically suppressed or distorted.

Charles Alston, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Woodson believed that people denied their history are denied their humanity, so he launched a national campaign to change that. He chose the second week of February because it included the birthdays of Frederick Douglass (Feb. 14) and Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12). Black communities were already commemorating both dates, so Woodson built on existing traditions.

Negro History Week became a grassroots movement. Black teachers, churches, fraternities, sororities, and newspapers embraced it long before white institutions did. By the 1930s and 1940s, Black schools held assemblies, churches organized lectures, newspapers published special issues, students memorized speeches, and communities honored Black leaders.

By the late 1960s, Black college students and activists demanded a broader, more assertive recognition of Black history. Many campuses expanded Negro History Week into Black History Month on their own. This shift reflected a rising Black consciousness, the influence of Black Studies programs, a rejection of tokenism, and a demand for year‑round historical inclusion.

During the U.S. Bicentennial, President Gerald Ford formally recognized February as Black History Month, urging Americans to:

“Seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor.”

Since then, every U.S. president has issued an annual proclamation. including Donald Trump, though what he does in 2026 remains to be seen. On Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday. Trump didn’t issue a proclamation until 7:30 pm and only then after reporters noted his failure to do so. Last Black History Month, the Trump Administration avoided references to slavery, Jim Crow, systemic racism, and the mention of civil rights leaders. Instead, they focused on heritage, shared American values, economic contributions, and unity. No member of the Trump administration mentioned MLK’s name on his birthday so my hopes for Black History Month aren’t great.

Keep in mind that American schools were segregated when Negro History Week came into being. In white schools, Negro History Week was often ignored or reduced to a single assembly. In Black schools, teachers rewrote lesson plans for the whole week. integrated Black history into reading, writing, math, and music. Classrooms were decorated with student‑made posters and timelines. Students were assigned biographies of Black leaders, and schools held debates, plays, and recitations.

Black educators were allowed some leeway to openly teach material that contradicted state-approved textbooks, but their activities were closely supervised. Most Black schools were run by white school boards and white superintendents who refused to allocate funds for materials and warned principals not to “overemphasize” Negro History Week. They insisted that teachers stick to the official (white‑written) textbooks and treated the week as unnecessary or “divisive.” Teachers often bought their own supplies because districts would not support the observance.

In counties where Black schools had white principals, teachers were told not to “stir up trouble.” Assemblies were restricted or banned, and teachers were reprimanded for teaching “unauthorized material.” Black teachers had to navigate these restrictions carefully to avoid retaliation. White parents and local white citizens sometimes complained, including accusations that Negro History Week “encouraged pride.” They feared that it would make Black students “discontented.”

What was taught typically fell into one of three categories. Most topics fell in the category of “Beating the Odds.” Keep in mind that topics were heavily scrutinized by those insisting on a tone of positivity, not promoting anger among Black students, and not portraying white people in a negative light.

Beating the Odds

This is the type of Black History story most acceptable to the white overseers. This is the history Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, and Pete Hegseth would find acceptable if any Black History were taught at all. They see no harm in teaching that George Washington Carver found over 300 uses for the peanut, that Benjamin Banneker built a wooden clock, or how Ruby Bridges integrated New Orleans public schools. In their stories, we learn about their hardships and what they overcame, with the presumption that they lived happily ever after once they completed the task for which they were known.

Crispus Attucks was the Black man who was the first to die in the Boston Massacre. We are taught that Attucks helped lead colonists because the British government did not recognize his full humanity. Hint: the American government wouldn’t recognize his full humanity for another two centuries. Attucks was born into slavery to an enslaved father and a Native American slave woman in Massachusetts. This history is only taught in graduate schools, as teaching that Native Americans were enslaved and that children born to slave mothers due to Partus Sequitur Ventrem laws is more than teachers are allowed to get into in grade school. It is enough to make Crispus Attucks a hero, willing to give his life for the country he loved, without mentioning that he was a runaway slave, always looking over his shoulder for slave catchers.

The early Negro History Weeks in Black schools had an ambitious agenda. They started by teaching about the civilizations of Africa, including Ancient Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia, as well as the West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. Africa had systems of government, scholarship, trade, and art, none of which were discussed in 1926 textbooks.

Teachers covered the transatlantic slave trade, the history of resistance, and the role Black people played in building the American economy. Woodson made sure students understood slavery to be a system of exploitation and not a labor agreement. Black abolitionists included Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, David Walker, and Henry Highland Garnett. Teachers taught that Black soldiers fought in every American War and made contributions as artists, writers, and musicians. Local Black History was part of the curriculum, including the history of local Black churches and Black-owned businesses. Negro History Week was meant to build community memory, not just national memory.

I mentioned earlier that American schools were segregated in 1926, with the Brown v. Board decision not coming for 28 years and not implemented quickly then. Northern schools, even after integration, were slow to recognize Black History. Northern districts generally lagged far behind Black schools in the South, where Negro History Week was a major institution.

In my hometown of Minneapolis, there was no mention of Black History in elementary school. I attended a private school in 7th grade, where I have no recollection of it being taught. The public school I attended next was unique in Minneapolis in that it served grades 7–12 after a merger with the private school I’d attended, which also served those grades. My school was the first in Minneapolis to integrate voluntarily. We had Negro History Week during the first year of the merger, which taught what I’ll call the “positivity stories.”

Each of the next five years, we covered the same material again and again, with no greater depth. We did cover the Haitian Revolution as a successful slave revolt without ever discussing revolts that took place in America. No German Coast Revolt of 1811, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, Denmark Vesey’s Conspiracy, Gabriel Prosser, Stono Rebellion, or New York Slave Revolt for us. The Beating the Odds stories were generally safe and positive, though had I been raised in the South, I may have had a completely different experience.

The Resistance Stories

Consider the resistance stories, those in which Black people didn’t meekly accept their plight and fought, both violently and non-violently, to improve their condition. I mentioned how several large-scale revolts weren’t covered. Neither were the smaller instances like a woman named Celia who killed her master while being assaulted, nor Dolly, who killed her master who was attempting to whip her. Maybe those stories weren’t told because both women were executed when captured. Black women and men had few legal rights in America and didn’t fare well in the courts throughout American history.

Why Celia Couldn’t Claim Self-Defense After Killing Her Rapist | by William Spivey | ZORA

One resistance story often told was that of Harriet Tubman, who freed over 70 people from slavery and guided them to freedom in the North. During the Civil War, Tubman planned and led a nighttime raid that freed over 700 enslaved people in a single night. Tubman’s exploits were widely taught, but she was the exception and not the rule.

Call to Action Stories

You have to look hard to find Black History Month stories with a call to action. The stories taught described people who acted but rarely asked others to take action. Frederick Douglass encouraged his audiences to:

Learn to Read
Question everything
Organize politically
Demand rights
Use your voice

His message was as follows:

“Improve your mind, improve your condition, and challenge injustice.”

If you were fortunate enough to learn about the Birmingham Children’s Crusade, you would have heard:

“You are not too young to fight for freedom.”

Fannie Lou Hamer always gave the following instructions:

Register to vote
Bring others with you
Challenge unfair political structures
Build local political power

“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free — so get involved.”

Ida B. Wells conducted an anti-lynching campaign that instructed young people to:

Investigate injustice
Collect data
Publish the truth
Challenge lies with evidence

Only a handful of commonly taught Black History Month stories actually tell students what to do next. Douglass told them to agitate. The Greensboro Four told them to organize. The Birmingham children were told to march. Hamer told them to vote. Wells told them to document the truth. These are the stories that function as actual calls to action, but they are rarely taught in a way that students receive the message.

Black History Month was never meant to be a museum of inspirational moments. It was designed as a mirror and a mandate — a reminder of what Black people have endured, what we’ve built, and what we still owe one another. The “beating the odds” stories showcase our brilliance despite the world. The resistance stories show our refusal to accept the world as it is. But the call‑to‑action stories are the ones that turn history into instruction. They tell us plainly that progress has always depended on ordinary people deciding to do something extraordinary.

If we limit Black History Month to celebration, we shrink its power. If we treat it as a season of memory rather than a season of movement, we miss the point entirely. The stories we choose to elevate — and the ones we quietly avoid — reveal what we expect from the next generation. So maybe the real question isn’t which stories we tell, but what we want those stories to make possible. Because history doesn’t change anything on its own. People do.

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This post was previously published on Cultured.

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