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black history is American history« Thread Started on Feb 11,

PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 7:45 am
by admin
black history is American history« Thread Started on Feb 11, 2006, 10:47am » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Dear America,In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson initiated the annual February observance of Negro History Week, the precursor to Black History Month. Dr. Woodson chose February for the observance because February twelfth was Abraham Lincoln's birthday and February fourteenth was the accepted birthday of Frederick Douglass. By the 1970s, Negro History Week had expanded to become Black History Month. When Dr. Woodson launched what we now celebrate as Black History Month 80 years ago, his goal was to shine a light on the richness and depth of the African-American community and its invaluable contributions to the fabric of the American community. Nowhere are those rich contributions more evident than in the lives of two great women we recently lost, Mrs. Coretta Scott King and Mrs. Rosa Parks. In their lives and in their legacies, these two women exemplify all that Dr. Woodson sought to illuminate, and their contributions to our national community have made us a better people and a stronger nation.We are stronger because of who they were and what they did and because of all the men and women who went before them and who follow in their footsteps. Democrats know, however, that we do justice to all of them and to Black History month only with a vision and a commitment that extends beyond the month of February.The future of this country, like the inextricable threads of history, is linked to the condition of its entire people. As we commemorate and celebrate and look to the contributions of African-Americans, Democrats will continue to work to fulfill the unfinished promise and ensure that the rights and privileges and opportunities of our nation are accessible to all Americans. We honor the accomplishments of our great African-American innovators and challenge the world to remember, daily, that black history is American history. Governor Howard Dean, M.D.Chairman, Democratic National Committee