African American History Month Is Every Month

"Don't wait for black history month to recommend a book about african american culture, or go looking for native americans at thanksgiving. Offer children balanced reading that incorporates books from other cultures all year round."
—Michelle Y. Green

February is the time America sets aside to honor its African American heritage. For some, this nation-wide celebration feels inadequate. Multicultural leaders tell us that awareness of diversity shouldn’t be limited to a superficial, once a year celebration. As reported on www.blackvoices.com in an article that can be found here, Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman was recently quoted “You're going to relegate my history to a month?” African American history, he pointed out, is American history. Yet it can’t be denied that this month is an invitation to go deeper. As slam poet personality and Broadway star Sarah Jones explains: “I agree with the principle that Morgan is talking about, and my only fear is that if we let people just put our history in with the rest of the history that they ain’t teaching, they’ll never know anything about us. And if all we have is a month right now, we need to do the most we can with that month until we can get all eleven months that we deserve back.”

Blue Island Public Library has put up some inspiring displays this week, both upstairs in the Main Reading Room, and downstairs in Children’s. These displays spotlight the multicultural collection we’ve worked hard to build. They also honor our promise to highlight important African American resources in our community EACH and EVERY MONTH. The celebration will be happening here on the blog, too. So keep reading. And don’t think for a minute that the party stops on March 1st!