On February 20th, the Albany City Council issued Proclamation No. 2024-01 in recognition of Black History Month acknowledging and recognizing the Albany Unified School District Black Parent Advisory Group (BPAG) for their dedicated and ongoing work in the community to create, foster and promote equitable access for African American students and families. 

National Black History Month officially began in 1976, but has origins dating back to 1915 when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the organization that is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Through this organization, Dr. Woodson initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926. The week in February was selected because it included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

In 1976, ASALH expanded this commemoration of Black history in the United States from a week-long observance to Black History Month. In 1986, Congress passed Public Law 99-244, which designated February 1986 as "National Black (Afro-American) History Month.” Since 1996, presidents have issued annual proclamations for National Black History Month. The 2024 White House Proclamation on National Black History Month can be found here.

Below are current and historical figures featured for their outstanding achievements and contributions to the world.

Featured:

• Octavia E. Butler – Octavia Butler was a pioneering writer of science fiction. As one of the first African American and female science fiction writers, Butler wrote novels that concerned themes of injustice towards African Americans, global warming, women’s rights, and political disparity. Her books are now taught in schools and universities across the U.S. She was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Grant—the only science fiction writer to receive this award. She won Nebula and Hugo Awards, the two highest honors for science fiction. As a pioneer in science fiction, she opened up the genre to many other African American and female writers.
• Marie Maynard Daly – Overcoming the dual hurdles of racial and gender bias, Marie Maynard Daly conducted important studies on cholesterol, sugars, and proteins. In addition to her research, she was committed to developing programs to increase the enrollment of minority students in medical school and graduate science programs. Daly’s early research included studies of the effects of cholesterol on the mechanics of the heart, the effects of sugars and other nutrients on the health of arteries, and the breakdown of the circulatory system as a result of advanced age or hypertension. Later she studied how proteins are produced and organized in the cell.
• W.E.B. Du Bois – Du Bois attended Fisk University, Harvard, and the University of Berlin. As a scholar he helped invent the field of Sociology as we know it today. As an activist he helped found the NAACP. As a writer he penned some of the finest works of prose to come out of America in the Twentieth Century, including The Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction. As a public intellectual Du Bois fought injustice, inequality, and prejudice wherever he found it through public debates, speeches, countless editorials, and essays. As a propagandist he took on prevailing assumptions of his own time with powerful rhetoric, and compelling imagery
• Mae Jemison – US astronaut, doctor and engineer Mae Jemison became the first Black woman to go into space in 1992. She was one of seven crew aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, on a mission named STS-47. Partly inspired by a love of Star Trek, she aspired to go into space and was sure she would get there. “As a little girl… I always assumed I would go into space,” she said in a 2017 interview. “Let me make sure that’s clear: I just always assumed, despite the fact that the US hadn’t sent any women up there, or people of color, that I was going to go.” Little did she know then that she would also one day become the first real astronaut to appear in an episode of Star Trek.
• Norman Wilfred Lewis – Lewis, a leading African-American painter, was an important member of the Abstract Expressionism movement, and he also used representational strategies to focus on black urban life and his community’s struggles. Lewis’s work is characterized by the duality of abstraction and representation, using both geometric and natural forms, and expressing both righteous anger and joyous celebration. His paintings are singled out for their linear, calligraphic lines, along with his bright, expressive palette and atmospheric effects. Often overlooked in art history studies, there has been a renaissance of interest in Lewis’s oeuvre since the 1990s.
• Paul Revere Williams – Williams designed almost 2,000 homes in Los Angeles alone, many for wealthy businessmen and Hollywood stars. Yet he also designed affordable homes, public housing, and a host of civic, commercial, and institutional buildings. He was also part of the LAX planning and design team. He received the AIA Award of Merit, the NAACP Spingarn Medal, and USC’s Distinguished Alumni Award. In 1957, he became first African American to become an AIA Fellow. Williams was posthumously awarded the AIA’s 2017 Gold Medal, America’s highest honor for an architect. Williams is the first African American to receive the AIA Gold Medal.