Today marks the beginning of Black History Month, a time for the
U.S. to highlight achievements and contributions of black
Americans in the nation. Usually that means celebrating such
figures as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and
Martin Luther King Jr. — as it should. But we also need to
expand our definitions of the black population to reflect its
changing demographics and the increased numbers of African and
Caribbean immigrants and include in our celebrations black
ethnic individuals who have advanced black society, politics,
activism and the arts, such as Kwame Nkrumah, Shirley Chisholm,
Stokely Carmichael and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The origins of this
month began in 1926, when historian Carter G. Woodson (and the
Association for the Study of Negro Life and History) declared
the second week of February to be Negro History Week. In 1976,
the federal government expanded the celebration to the entire
month. It was President Gerald Ford who urged Americans to
“seize the opportunity to honor the