How big things start small, or: the story of Black History Month

👋 Welcome back
Issue #259: asking yourself why, Brian Eno’s life advice, and courage
By Harris Sockel

In 1926, Carter G. Woodson, one of the first historians to focus specifically on the African diaspora, proposed a celebration of Black Americans’ contributions to the country (it was first just a week) coinciding with Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, February 12. In 1970, the holiday became a month-long celebration when college students and professors decided to make it a “thing” at Kent State University in Ohio. In 1976, it went national — becoming the version of Black History Month we know today.

I love that this holiday started small and built into something much bigger. A single historian proposed it; then, a group of students who were passionate about deepening their understanding of history turned it into a weeklong celebration. Meanwhile, for decades since the mid-1960s, activists and historians in West Virginia, Chicago, and elsewhere had been celebrating their own, local Black History Months. Eventually, 50 years after Woodson proposed the idea, it became a national institution.

With that in mind, I want to spotlight a Medium publication focusing exclusively on perspectives and stories from overlooked (yet highly influential) Black Americans: William Spivey’s Black History Month 365. Spivey’s been running the publication since 2021, and has used it to feature over 400 landmark speeches, historic moments, and people, from Ella Baker (a civil rights organizer who largely worked behind the scenes) to Frederick Douglass. He also created a quiz, if you’re the competitive type.

One more story to bookmark: Marlon Weems’ “Remembering the South End,” an essay about Weems’ life in Arkansas during the ’60s, when Jim Crow laws made Little Rock into a segregated city. It’s a moving, highly specific window into the past — Weems takes us to the South End, a neighborhood where Black entrepreneurs opened doctors’ offices, law firms, restaurants, and barbershops. “Little Rock was a city still in the grip of Jim Crow,” Weems writes, “But as a Black fourth grader, I hardly noticed the system of apartheid that surrounded me. It was all I’d ever known.”

🤏 Three great stories in 1 sentence or less.

• You won’t finish that piece of writing until you know why you’re writing it. (David B. Clear)
• The key to “a long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness and a better sense of humor”? Singing (even if you’re “bad” at it). (Brian Eno)
• Dori Kasa takes on a brief tour of the many flavors of Scotch whisky, from the highlands to the lowlands and beyond — and clears up our confusion over how to spell it (“whiskey” for the American or Irish variants, and “whisky” for Scottish ones).

✨ The top highlight on Medium last week

“The real courage isn’t in speaking every truth we hold — it’s in knowing which truths serve a purpose and which ones we’re better off carrying silently away.” — Victoria Corindi, “The Exit Interview Trap: Why It’s Better to Lie”

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis

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