I'll Make Me a World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month

“Timely and vital . . . by excavating how Black educators, archivists, and activists organized and sustained this tradition over a century, Givens shows how to breathe life into Black History Month so that it can summon us for the struggle we are in now."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

On the 100th anniversary of Black History Month comes a powerful and essential meditation on its origins, evolution, and future, from one of America’s leading historians of black education and the author of American Grammar.

Acclaimed Harvard scholar Jarvis R. Givens takes us on a personal and political journey through the 100-year history of Black History Month—from its radical beginnings in 1926 as “Negro History Week” to its role today as a celebration and flashpoint in America’s cultural battles. Drawing on archival research, personal stories involving family and students, and especially the wisdom of black educators, Givens recovers the legacy of Carter G. Woodson and many others who envisioned black history as a liberatory force—knowledge that shapes who we are, how we resist, and what we dream.

With striking clarity, Givens challenges today’s myopic commemorations of iconic figures and urges us to expand our understanding of black history to include the everyday lives of ordinary people who played important roles in passing on black memories that helped disrupt oppressively narrow perspectives.

Givens also attends to the labor involved in preserving black history, especially where it is constantly denigrated and undervalued, and insists that more transparency about such processes is necessary to ensure this worthy tradition is passed on to future generations. At a time when black history is under attack, this book offers an inspiring vision for how it can still be a source of power, truth, and possibility.