Why Women’s History Month Is a Must for Black Men

By Houston Defender Originally appeared in Word in Black Women’s History Month offers invaluable benefits that Black men need. For many younger folk (millennials and Gen Zers) Women’s History Month has always been a thing. Whether commemorated fully or merely half-ass acknowledged, at least it’s always been in existence. But for Gen Xers (like me) and older, there was a time when Women’s History Month wasn’t. Origin of Women’s History Month According to the National Women’s History Museum (www.womenshistory.org), Women’s History Month (WHM), the month set aside to honor women’s contributions to American history, began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978. The organizers selected the week of March 8 to correspond with International Women’s Day (which I mistakenly assumed was founded after WHM to extend the celebration of women beyond US shores). The movement spread across the country as other communities initiated their own Women’s History Week celebrations the following year. And in 1980, a consortium of women’s groups and historians—led by the National Women’s History Project (now the National Women’s History Alliance)—successfully...