With the month of February dawning, another celebration of Black History Month is arriving.
Black History Month was first proposed by Black educators at Kent State University in the late 1960s, then the first commemoration was at that college in February 1970. It later became a national event.
Currently, there are about 42 million Black people in the United States, which is about 13 percent of the overall population.
There are lots of ways the Black History Month is marked, as schools and colleges and organizations and churches hold events.
For this episode or What’s The Frequency, we will discuss things that will occur over the month, and talk with three people for their impressions of how the yearly commemoration has changed over time.
The guests are Margarite Reinert, who is vice chairwoman of the Unity in the Community organization in Sioux City and also a professor at Briar Cliff University.
We also have LaShawna Dean, a social work advocate with a passion for driving change through advocacy and equity, who is organizing the third annual Power of Hair Expo in Sioux City, and also Briar Cliff University student Rose Davis.
They discuss why it is important to celebrate Black History Month, what it means personally, and some of the best BHM events they can recall.
The three women also weigh in on how Black History is taught in schools, and how that has evolved over time, as they contend there is a whole segment of a rich history that gets glossed over.
Davis, Dean and Reinert also shared thoughts on whether they thought 2024 would the year that a Black woman was going to become the first female president in US history, and chew over post-election exit polls that showed Black men didn’t vote for Kamala Harris in as large numbers as some expected. It appears that 92 percent of black women voted for Harris, compared to 77 percent.
*Click on the audio link above to hear the entire show.
What's The Frequency, Episode 51
