Bowie State Celebrates Black History Month

By Kelli Kensie

      It's February and once again time to celebrate Black History Month. However, there are those at Bowie State, a historically black university, who know little about how they've come to celebrate Black History Month. Carter Woodson, the second black person to receive a degree from the prestigious Harvard University, understood the importance of education. In conjunction with Omega Psi Phi fraternity, Woodson created Negro History and Literature Week in 1920, to encourage black student to take an interest in their past as a people. Woodson changed the name to Negro History Week in 1926 and selected February for the celebration. He chose February in honor of the birth of Abraham Lincoln on the 12th and Frederick Douglass on the 14th. These men were held in high esteem for their importance in the black community; Lincoln freed the slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation and Douglass was a leading abolitionist of the time. In the 1950's Negro History and Literature Week was changed to Black History Week and then Black History Month in 1976.

     Of course, we should celebrate our blackness, or as Léopold Senghor would put it "negritude," everyday but February is when we focus all our efforts at once and are on one accord. Bowie State has a myriad of activities planned for Black History Month and for those who have not seen the flyers around campus here is a complete list of events.