Urbandale Community School District: Celebrating Black History Month Throughout February 2022

Press release from the Urbandale Community School District:

February 7, 2022

Rolling Green second grade students are celebrating Black History Month by working on a Who’s Who research project where they spend time researching current or past Black Americans. Students will then share what they learned during their research project to build knowledge and understanding during Black History Month.

A group of Rolling Green first grade students working with ELL Teacher Mrs. Chiston read the book I Am Enough by Grace Byers and then looked at photos of famous Black Americans. The students came up with character traits and descriptions based on the photos and then used those words to write their own affirmations for themselves.

February 1, 2022

Black History Month is an annual celebration and recognition of the extraordinary accomplishments of Black Americans. Black History Month began in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, a renowned Black American historian, scholar, educator, and publisher, and was originally referred to as “Negro History Week.” It became a month-long annual celebration first acknowledged by the U.S. Government in 1976 under the leadership of President Gerald Ford. Since 1976, every U.S. President has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. The celebration is held in February in order to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln; both men having made positive and lasting contributions to the lives of Black Americans. (Source: History.com, Black History Month, January 2010)

Join us in celebrating #BlackHistory throughout February. We encourage you to set aside time to learn more about our collective American History by viewing, reading, and listening to these resources. We honor, support, and lift up Black voices everywhere.

Black History Month Resources:

• Pan-African Flag (red, black, green seen in the graphic for this article)
• 10 Ways to Celebrate Black History Month in Des Moines
• BlackPast
• Iowa PBS Black History Month
• Ted Talks to celebrate Black History Month
• History.com
• African American History Month
• Biography.com
• Association for the Study of African American Life and History
• WHO 13 – Honoring Black History Month
• Reading Rockets
• National Archives

This press release was produced by the Urbandale Community School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.