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February is Black History Month, also known as National African-American History Month in the United States. It is celebrated also in Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands.

This year’s theme is “African Americans and the Vote,” is in honor of the sesquicentennial of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) and centennial anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment (1920). Fifteenth Amendment gave black men the right to vote. The Nineteenth Amendment granted women’s suffrage.

According to the Library of Congress website, “National African American History Month had its origins in 1915 when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. This organization is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (“ASALH”). Through this organization Dr. Woodson initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926. Dr. Woodson selected the week in February that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two key figures in the history of African Americans.”

Jimmy Carter stated of the then called National Afro-American (Black) History Month in 1978 “This Month gives black Americans a wonderful opportunity to review their roots, their achievements and their projections; and it provides for all Americans a chance to rejoice and express pride in a heritage that adds so much to our way of life.”

The first year that the Month was formally designated was 1986. The Library of Congress provides Legislative and Executive Branch documents about the month from 1975 to the present. To read the documents, go to https://www.loc.gov/law/help/commemorative-observations/african-american.php.