Black History Month will once again be celebrated in Alachua County with numerous events hosted and sponsored by the Alachua County Library District, Gainesville Housing Authority, churches, organizations and other segments of the community.
Black History Month, which began in 1976 as a way of honoring Black history and achievement in America, was the idea of Carter G. Woodson and his peers with the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which is now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Before 1976, Black History Month was celebrated as Black History Week beginning in 1926, according to Britannica.com.
February was chosen to celebrate Black History Month because it is the birth month of the late U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who freed Black enslaved people in the U.S. by signing the Emancipation Proclamation, and the great Black orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglas, according to www.Britannica.com.
Black History Month events locally will be held throughout the community, with a lot of them hosted by the Alachua County Library District. Below is a list of events, though not a complete list, held locally to celebrate Black History Month.