The founder of Black History Month, Carter G. Woodson, said, "If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world and it stands in danger of being exterminated." (1) Because of his ardent belief in preserving and revealing important elements of American history that are marginalized when it concerns Blacks, Woodson began the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 and Negro History Week in 1926. During this era, American society marginalized Blacks through disenfranchisement, discrimination, lynching, and racism. This lack of empowerment was reflected in how history was recorded and taught. In the aim of rectifying this, Woodson created Negro History Week and then Black History Month. The purpose of Black History Month is to fulfill Woodson's intentions by continuing to rectify distorted and ignored aspects of Black History.

However, the implementation of Black History Month as of the present is accomplishing much of the opposite. Schools usually implement Black History by briefly covering the Abolitionist Movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Usually, only a few Black people are ever covered, with far more emphasis on Black males and especially professions such as entertainment and athletics. However, much of history is not Jesse Owens winning four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics or how good of a Jazz Musician Louis Armstrong was. The sad, but true adage is that "history is written by the victors," and this means much of history is how the relations of people are affected by the hegemony of another group. For this reason, the current framework of Black History Month no longer works.

The spirit of Black History Month is emphasized when history as a whole is not segregated. This can only be done if teachers put a great emphasis on being as all encompassing as possible when presenting any history. Teachers can begin implementing this in the classroom if they do a better job of covering important Black people of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and help students understand the problems presented to Blacks by the White hegemony. All important Blacks, male and female, should be incorporated in the teaching and recording of history, and when their participation was marginalized by the hegemony of the time, the history presented must make clear what conditions and reasons made this so. Black people have played a role in American history throughout its existence, but for the purposes of this paper, not every single issue can be confronted. Instead, the primary focus of this paper will be directed at common historical topics covered in the classroom, which are distorted and do no justice to not only Black History, but all of history as well.

The first era of American history that will be of concern to this paper was the fight for Civil Rights during the Industrial Revolution. In the classroom, the two most prominent Black figures focused on concerning the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries are Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. However, there are two problems with the teaching of these men in the classroom. First, by only mentioning the opinions and actions of these two men, a teacher marginalizes the role of many men and women who worked hard trying to achieve equality for different ethnicities and between men and women. For example, Mary Terrell and Ida Wells were two women involved in not only the fight for ethnic equality between Blacks and Whites, but were also involved in doing the same for Women's Rights. However, they are usually not mentioned in a run of the mill history class. There are many opportunities to integrate the historical curriculum with many Black men and women who worked towards temperance, women's suffrage, and equality with Whites.

Second, the involvement of Blacks during the Industrial Revolution is also overlooked much of the time. Blacks were not only trying to attain their rights to education and enfranchisement, they were also playing a part in America's growing economic prowess. For example, Lewis Latimer improved the carbon filament for one of humankind's greatest inventions, the light bulb. In addition to this, he drew up the plans of Alexander Graham Bell's first telephone, even though that model was not the first ever. (2) In fact, Black men and women have played a role in the creation of everything from the modern hairbrush, mobile refrigeration, blood blanks, and laser eye surgery in modern times. (3) It is important to make clear to a classroom that even though people like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford accomplished great things, they had borrowed ideas from other inventors and had teams of inventors working for them. Because of this, it is important to make clear that Blacks and many other unappreciated inventors contributed to the Industrial Revolution.

After a teacher takes into account the role of women and inventors during this era, he or she still might teach about Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. If this is so, he or she has to make sure to emphasize the truth to the best of his or her ability. Too many teachers portray Washington in a positive fashion and DuBois negatively. Booker T. Washington, who in his own autobiography called Blacks "heathens," should not be presented in too positive of a fashion in a classroom. Sadly, if Washington is typically glorified, W.E.B DuBois is usually assailed for his supposedly radical ideology. Since when did asking for economic, social, and political freedom make anyone an extremist? His lack of submissiveness to Whites concerning economic, social, and political issues made him a true outspoken hero of his time, not an extremist. Booker T. Washington tried to help Blacks through education, but he believed that Blacks should strive for economic equality first. However, his reasons were not entirely pragmatic, because he was a Social Darwinist and believed that Blacks were socially and politically not able. According to the historian Jeremy Wells, Washington described himself as: "...someone who has not only risen from slavery and destitution but from barbarism...itself: someone who has traversed the distance between 'darkest heathenism' and...enlightenment to become, in the words of one white admirer, 'a representative of...Negro enterprise and Negro civilization.'" (4) If anyone was a radical, it was Washington and not DuBois. In the classroom, a history teacher should make this known to her or his students.

The second focus of this paper will be the conflict that Black people fought with the dominant White hegemony during the Progressive Era and the New Deal. The importance of doing this is two fold. One, it helps show that Blacks were very much part of the growth of the modern nation-state during the twentieth century as they were part of history during the Industrial Revolution. Too many eras of history are taught as if Blacks did not exist and this is unacceptable. Two, the growth of the modern nation-state in America helps add a particular insight to the marginalized role of Blacks during American History. When teachers incorporate in their lessons the true sociopolitical effects on Blacks of the White hegemony during this era, they will better serve their roles as historians and by doing so they successfully incorporate Blacks in the history they have partaken.

Far too often, when educators teach the Progressive Era, they usually only confront its effects on big business, regulations, and immigrants. However, it is rather convenient that Blacks are usually totally ignored when teaching about this era, because the sad truth is the Progressivism totally ignored and even exploited Black people for political purposes. Progressive programs, such as the enfranchisement of women, the creation of rural credits, regulations on business practices, and the implementation of the Federal Reserve System had far different aims than improving the lives of Blacks. On the most part, they were implemented in the aim of fulfilling a Progressive philosophic goal of making a homogeneous middle class society. (5) Extremes in wealth and poverty conflicted with this goal and so did the very large White, but foreign immigrant population. For this reason, Progressives wanted to "Americanize" the immigrants. (6) Blacks, who once had voting privileges and education in the South, were totally disfranchised and marginalized by the time of the Progressive Era. For the sake of not losing votes, Progressives sacrificed the urgent needs of Blacks in issues such as segregation and voting so they can fulfill an agenda that excluded them. (7)

Nonetheless, at the urgings of people like W.E.B. DuBois, Blacks volunteered and did not resist being drafted in World War I. They were valiant fighters and they hoped that their contribution would bring a due amount of respect. However, the interests of Blacks were sacrificed for the sake of the war effort. Wilson's administration relied upon voluntary support from states, corporations, and local governments in order to further their war agendas. Because of this, Blacks were drafted at higher rates than Whites and were paid less as part of the workforce. (8) In fact, the Progressives were so concerned with the war effort, they purposely gave in to the interests of Southern States who tried to prevent as much migration of Black laborers to better jobs as possible. The backward infrastructure of the Southern economy relied upon the exploitation of Black labor at miniscule wages and the Progressives were willing to keep it that way if it meant securing southern compliance with the administration's programs. (9) Again, Progressivism's goals to raise wages, lower the hours in the work week, enfranchise women and immigrants, create a dominant American middle class, and other policies were not extended to or intended for Blacks. They were totally ignored, exploited, and used as political pawns for the Progressive agenda. Quite fittingly, the war became the movement's undoing, and social initiatives disappeared from the American political landscape until the presidency of Herbert Hoover.

Before the Great Depression set in, Hoover helped created the Federal Farm Board, but it did little to help farmers or Black share croppers. As the depression began to worsen, Hoover's responses to it were to create the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and efforts to keep up wages. Franklin Roosevelt continued policies of subsidizing banks and farmers, but in addition to this he ushered in legislation that gave jobs through federal welfare programs and created the Social Security safety net. Nonetheless, educators too often ignore very important aspects of this era as it pertains to Blacks when teaching it in class.

It is generally agreed by scholars such as Alan Brinkley, David Kennedy, and Peter Fearon, that Roosevelt's program for recovery was an ongoing experiment with no prevailing economic or political policy reining for an extended period of time. Roosevelt's New Deal to the American people was in many ways discriminatory of Blacks. The National Industrial Recovery Act was one such piece of legislation. It enforced cartels, which in turn increased wages. However, its overwhelming effect was that it put Blacks out of work, because employers chose to keep their higher paid White employees so they did not have to increase the wages of Blacks. After its failure to create any recovery, it would be declared unconstitutional in 1935, which was a godsend to the embarrassed Roosevelt Administration.

Distribution of New Deal funds and programs also failed to help America's most needy population at the time, southern Blacks. Money was consistently distributed disproportionately to Whites in northeastern and western states, whose populations were more politically important than Blacks in securing electoral victories for the burgeoning New Deal Coalition. The greatest discrimination towards Blacks occurred when the distribution of money at the local level went more often to Whites in districts allied to the New Deal Coalition than solidly Democratic districts with disenfranchised Blacks. (10) New Deal spending was politically strategic and it was considered wasteful to help Blacks who as a demographic were not important in elections. In fact, New Deal spending was at its highest before elections. (11) Years of noble experimenting to no avail maintained high levels of unemployment, especially Black unemployment, and so the belief that the New Deal created jobs is unsubstantiated. (12)

Perhaps, the most obviously racist legislation passed during the New Deal was the Social Security Act. Initially, Social Security benefits would not cover about 9.4 million of the poorest eligible citizens; and the majority were poor Blacks. (13) The interests of Blacks were sacrificed so that the act can be passed. Nonetheless, Blacks had the highest participation rates in self-help societies throughout the twentieth century and together persevered from this setback. (14) Roosevelt, for the same political reasons, did not support the Costian-Wagner Act. This act would have made lynching a federal crime so racist murderers would not be set free by friendly local courts. Franklin Roosevelt built the political strength of his New Deal Coalition at the cost of the Black people. One cannot honestly teach the New Deal without teaching about those who benefited from it and those who did not, because of the era's racism.

A history teacher has a duty not to ignore the history of Blacks when he or she teaches. For this reason, it has been shown how the teaching of the Industrial Revolution and early twentieth century political change is typically not satisfactory, because it ignores Black History. Contrary to how it usually taught in the classroom, the Civil Rights movement did not happen overnight. It was the consequence of years of discrimination, disenfranchisement, and marginalization that resulted from the sociopolitical failings of the White hegemony. It might feel good or patriotic to teach about the Progressives and Franklin Roosevelt as these great political forces seeking to help the common person, but a teacher does America's Blacks no justice by doing so. A honest history teacher has to let her or his students know about the fundamental limits of certain political movements like Progressivism or the more cold and calculating aspects of certain historical people's characters such as Franklin Roosevelt's and Booker T. Washington's.

The fact of the matter is that many educators ignore or do not confront these facts, because Whites do not like owing up to their past discrimination and prejudice. However, it is absolutely essential that educators let students know about the abuses of the White hegemony in America's history. A teacher should inform students about great historical figures in Black history as it pertains to any era. Teachers should give credit where credit is due, and incorporate all ethnicities and genders in their lessons. However, American history has at many points lacked Black influence at the same level of Whites. This is because Whites marginalized Blacks, but a forced lack of contribution in history is indeed history. A teacher cannot ignore it. The reason there were not more Black inventors, politicians, or writers was because Whites made it so. Until a teacher makes this very clear throughout the lessons he or she teaches about American history, that teacher is not doing his or her job.

So, if a teacher takes this into account, he or she might question how Black History Month can be made historically relevant. After all, Black History Month has been made irrelevant in many schools. Often, school curriculums during Black History Month will praise twentieth century entertainers, but they will not confront the issue of White hegemony and they fail to rectify the distorted history taught in the classroom. This is contrary to Carter Woodson's original intentions. He began Negro History Week, because he saw that historians were marginalizing legitimate Black historical figures. More importantly, he saw history ignoring the achievements, actions, and plight of all the Black people. This made him fear the worst, even possible extermination.

Black History Month as of the present sadly does the opposite of empowering Blacks. As long as its implementation covers just a couple historical figures in a shallow fashion and then totally ignores the role that a dominant White hegemony played in marginalizing and disenfranchising Blacks, its use as an educational tool will be unacceptable. In addition to this, teachers should realize that every single month is Black History Month. Woodson's goal was that one day there would be an honest portrayal of Black History and all of history. In order to make that goal a reality, it is up to the teacher to be as unbiased as possible, speak about the issues at hand, and not segregate history. Black History is not some sort of marginal and separate history from the history that is taught in class. In fact, it is part of the collective whole of history. Black History Month no longer works, because the circumstances are available to no longer marginalize the role of Blacks and to above all, teach an honest history. At this point, only a conscious effort to incorporate Blacks in the entire historical curriculum is acceptable.

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Footnotes