Carter Woodson created what has become Black History Month because he refused to be erased.

Woodson became a black historian the hard way. His parents, both slaves until a few years before he was born, needed his income in rural Virginia. So he worked as a sharecropper and miner, moving to West Virginia at 17 to dig for coal there.

Well past the age most people graduate from high school, Woodson began attending classes. He finished in less than two years, then got a degree from Berea College in Kentucky. After a stint working for the U.S. government in our then-colony of The Philippines, he got a second bachelor’s from the University of Chicago and then a Ph.D. from Harvard.

But this was the early 20th century – I’m guessing the time period that some folks in red hats perceive as when America was great. 

So when Woodson, with credentials that probably blew away most of those deciding, was refused admission to American Historical Association conferences, he took his wisdom and created the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

Because Woodson knew – as anyone with even a smidgen of understanding knows – that Black history is American history. It’s an integral part – American history and accomplishment is woefully incomplete without an understanding of what Black people endured and contributed to this country.

Woodson first created Negro History Week 100 years ago. It later became Black History Month and continues to this day with the guidance of what’s now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. 

He put in February. Not, as some comedians like to joke, because it’s the shortest month, but because it’s the month in which two of the most important figures in Black American lives – Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass – were born.

Black History Month has grown more prominent in recent years. The association that runs it has an annual theme for its commemoration and program, this year focusing on the celebration’s centennial. Other years have seen attention given to education, economics, politics and the arts.

Of course, since the 2024 election, Trump and his gangsters have tried to diminish Black history. There should just be history is the gist of what they’re saying, trying to make it seem as though racial bigotry and animus have been eliminated.

In some cases, retroactively. In Philadelphia, signs discussing how enslaved Africans worked at George Washington’s home were taken down; the city is suing the administration to get them returned. Last year, the dolt occupying the Secretary of Defense’s (that’s right!) office was forced to retreat after an attempt to remove references to the Tuskegee Airmen from training material.

Erasure is not limited to Black people. You’re watching it in real time at the Super Bowl.

It is – to say the very least – insulting the intelligence of anyone with half a brain to think there needs to be an “All American” alternative to the scheduled official halftime performance of Bad Bunny. It implies a) that the Super Bowl is a strictly United States event; b) that Puerto Rico, Bad Bunny’s home, is not part of the United States; and c) that any of the human leaf blower voices listed on the alternative show are in any way comparable to one of the most dynamic and entertaining performers in the world.

But bigots seem determined to have their say. I’m an elderly Italian-American man and the only Spanish I used to know was the translation of English language ads and warnings on the New York City subway (Aviso: La vía del tren subterráneo es peligrosa. Si el tren se para entre las estaciones, quédese adentro. No salga afuera. Siga las instrucciones de los operadores del tren o la policía). That said, the only reason I’m watching the game is to share the joy of Bad Bunny with hundreds of millions around the world.

Bad Bunny, like Carter Woodson, refuses to be erased. So do other Black, Hispanic, Asian, and indigenous people. So do those of us Caucasians who refuse to accept a homogenous white identity, instead relishing the history of our immigrant ancestors.

Combined, those histories tell the real story of a country that hopefully will be great again after we fight off Trump’s effort to destroy us from within.

If you wonder why Black History Month is a big deal, there are two important reasons. One is that you’re going to hear and read a lot of interesting stories that you didn’t know before about Black contributions to America’s struggle.

The other is that no history is invalid or unworthy. History is history. It’s how we know that reverting to the past doesn’t make America great – learning from it and improving on it does.