A Century of Commemoration: What Higher Education Can Learn from 100 Years of Black History Month
This February marks the 100th anniversary of Black History Month's origins. What began as Negro History Week in 1926 has evolved into a national observance. For higher education leaders, this centennial offers an opportunity for honest reflection on whether our approaches align with the original vision that sparked this movement.
Woodson's Vision: More Than a Month
Carter G. Woodson, born in 1875 to parents who had been enslaved, became only the second Black American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard. His motivation for creating Negro History Week wasn't merely academic, it was a conviction that historical erasure was a form of violence. "If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world," he argued.
Crucially, Woodson never intended Black history to be confined to a single week or month. He pressed for schools to use Negro History Week as a culmination: a time to demonstrate what students had learned throughout the year. He envisioned a day when dedicated commemorations would be unnecessary because Black history would be woven into American education year-round.
In his 1933 work The Mis-Education of the Negro, Woodson argued that the education system failed Black students by offering a biased curriculum that ignored their contributions. His solution wasn't abandonment but transformation:
“We should not close any accredited Negro colleges or universities, but we should reconstruct the whole system.”
Exemplary Programming Today
Across the country, institutions are marking this centennial with programming that transcends surface-level celebration. Michigan State's 26-year-old Dr. William G. Anderson Lecture Series connects civil rights history to living practitioners. Florida A&M's Meek-Eaton Black Archives features military regalia from alumni dating to the American Revolution. Princeton's African American Studies department hosts "Black Studies is for Everyone," a daylong symposium emphasizing the field's universal relevance.
Coahoma Community College in Mississippi offers a particularly compelling model. Their Honors College Colloquia Series, "From Carter G. Woodson to #BlackHistoryEveryMonth," directly examines the historical development of Black history commemorations and the ongoing role of institutions in promoting cultural awareness. An interdisciplinary art exhibition, "Commemorating Blackness," features works by students, faculty, and local artists exploring themes of memory, identity, and the future of Black cultural expression.
Perhaps most aligned with Woodson's vision is Coahoma's "We Are the Archive"—an oral history initiative where faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members share personal narratives that are recorded to preserve local Black history. This approach embodies Woodson's belief that history belongs to the people who live it, not just the scholars who study it.
Moving Forward
For institutions seeking to honor Woodson's vision, consider these questions: Is Black history woven throughout your curriculum, or siloed into February? Does programming address structural issues like the economics of slavery and the architecture of Jim Crow, or merely celebrate individual achievements? What happens on March 1?
One hundred years ago, Woodson looked at an education system that erased Black contributions and responded with institution-building. Today, higher education has the opportunity to recommit to his vision, not through symbolic gestures, but through curricular integration, sustained investment, and institutional courage. The question this February is not merely "What events will we host?" but "Are we building the educational transformation Woodson envisioned?"
Woodson's vision called for systemic reconstruction, not surface-level additions. Moving from commemoration to transformation requires both honest institutional assessment and the capacity to navigate complex change. T3 Advisory partners with colleges and universities to design equity-centered strategies that extend beyond symbolic programming to examine how diverse perspectives are integrated across curriculum, student success initiatives, and institutional culture, then building the infrastructure to make that integration sustainable. Ready to build something that lasts beyond February? Let's talk.
This content originally appeared on our Linkedin page.