In past years, television commercials have reminded us that February is Black History Month. However, with the Olympics occupying so much media attention this year, commercials and shows reminding us about black history have been scarce. Not to blame the Olympics, but it is important for people to remember what, exactly, Black History Month is about — remembering the trials, sufferings, triumphs and achievements of the black people.

First, it is important to define Black History Month in terms of its origins in North American culture. The reason it is celebrated in February is because, in 1920, Carter Woodson, one of the first black men to obtain a degree from Harvard, created Negro History and Literature Week.

Occuring in February because it honoured the birthdays of Frederick Douglass, a former slave and leading abolitionist and Abraham Lincoln whose Emancipation Proclamation helped free many slaves in the United States. Of course, Negro History Week later turned into a month-long event — Black History Month.

In North America, the most difficult aspect of black history to comprehend is slavery — specifically, how slavery was established and abolished and the implications slavery carried must be acknowledged within black Americans’ struggle for rights and equality.

In the early 17th century, the enslavement of blacks from Africa established itself as the dominant agricultural and economic force in North America. It is this idea of oppressing one group of people for another’s benefits that sits as the primary concern of Black History Month.

In 1793, in a preventative measure against slave rebellions, the United States government passed the Fugitive Slave Act, criminalizing the act of helping a slave escape. This was an attempt to ensure slavery’s permanence in North American culture.

When slaves were brought over from Africa, they were crammed into large ships. So many people were pushed into these boats that, sometimes, they were forced to lie vertically within piles of their peers.

Crammed so tight within these spaces, many of the people died of suffocation or starvation. Along with this, the people were unable to move or go to the washroom. This horror of lying immobile in your own and others’ waste, pushed tight against other humans (both dead and alive), with a lack of oxygen and food, makes comprehending the slaves’ trip across the ocean unfathomable for today’s society.

In 1793, in a preventative measure against slave rebellions, the United States government passed the Fugitive Slave Act, criminalizing the act of helping a slave escape. This was an attempt to ensure slavery’s permanence in North American culture.

In spite of this attempt, it is important to remember the individual and communal rebellions black and white people staged against slavery.

In 1831, Nat Turner, a slave, led one of the first successful slave rebellions. He managed to murder his owners and moved his followers to revolt against whites — resulting in numerous deaths on both sides.

Although individual revolts such as Turner’s can be considered courageous, they do carry some negative and violent implications. The most positive and successful rebellions against slavery were the ones that unified the black and white communities. The Underground Railroad, while freeing slaves, helped establish antislavery as a communal ideal — at least in the northern states and in Canada.

With journalists such as William Lloyd Garrison (the founder of the antislavery newspaper The Liberator) spreading abolitionist ideologies in the North and freed slaves such as Harriet Tubman helping slaves in the South escape to the North and to Canada, antislavery became a realistic cause for the North to fight for.

The unfortunate consequence of the Underground Railroad, however, was the unification of the South against the North; they felt that the North’s abolitionist ideals were a detriment to America’s economic needs. This, of course, played a major role in the Civil War.

The Civil War of the 1860s saw the U.S. divided between North and South, specifically between the Union in the North and the Confederate States of America in the South. It saw many deaths for both sides, but, ultimately, it led to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Shortly after the Civil War, the 13th Amendment was adopted and slavery was abolished. However, blacks were not considered equal citizens.

With the 14th and 15th Amendments, black males were given the right to vote. But with groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, blacks were still viewed as secondary citizens.

White supremacy proved dominant in American ideologies and American society became divided into black and white — black and white schools, stores, restaurants, churches, water fountains, barber shops, and on.

Once again, just as with the movement to abolish slavery, the establishment of equality for blacks stemmed out of courageous individuals and community movements.

In the early 20th century, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) protested throughout America for equal education, the actual practice of universal male suffrage and the abolition of segregation. Its magazine, The Crisis, proved a catalyst for the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, which finally saw black culture and art recognized in a white-dominated media.

Of course, courageous acts by individuals such as Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. also helped bring awareness to the cause of equality for black Americans.

Jackie Robinson, a baseball player, was the first black professional athlete and he opened the door for many other black athletes to move into professional sports.

Rosa Parks, a black woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man and was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., became a hero amongst those fighting for black equality. Among those was Martin Luther King, Jr., who was inspired by Parks’ act and led a boycott against the city’s bus service.

Of course, the bus boycott catalyzed King to become more active in protesting and he became arguably the most prominent figure ever to fight for black rights. Most famously, he is known for his eloquent speeches — especially the “I have a dream” speech — and his peaceful approach to protesting. It was these speeches and protests that helped establish the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was another step towards equality among the black community.

The path to equality, however, was never a smooth one and was tense between white supremacists and the black community. In 1965, Malcolm X, a prominent black rights’ activist was shot from close range during a public speech; and then in 1968, King was assassinated.

These assassinations helped unify the black communities and established black power groups such as the Black Panthers. Of course, the black power movement exposed and may have created more violent tensions between the black and white communities, but at the very least, the unification and protests of the black community were extremely empowering.

In 1972, Shirley Chisholm, a black female, ran for president of the United States. She didn’t win but the exposure of a black woman as a candidate for president proved vital to both feminist and anti-racist ideologies of the 1970s.

In 1995, the Million Man March saw over 400,000 black men march the streets of Washington, D.C., in an attempt to instill a sense of pride amongst the black community. It served as a way for blacks to show that they could improve their societal status through hard work and community. In 1997, it was followed by the Million Woman March.

Now, in 2010, Barack Obama is the first black president of the United States. Although racism must still be acknowledged as a prominent force in present society, Obama manifests the progress society has made in terms of establishing equality between the black and white communities.

While this article briefly outlines a much-told black history, predominantly in the U.S.A., it must be remembered — especially in February — how members and organizations of the black and white communities fought against white supremacy and the oppression of the black people in order to establish equality.

Of course there are many other important figures — such as Dred Scott, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Oprah Winfrey, Jesse Jackson, Rodney King, Richard Pryor, Nelson Mandela, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and others — who played a vital role within past and present societies.

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photo: Flickr