âIt is not just about memorizing facts.â Historians examine how Black History Month was intended to be celebrated By Lauren Booker Globe Staff,Updated February 26, 2021, 6:34 p.m. Email to a Friend A protester carries an image of late Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King at the Martin Luther King Memorial near the Lincoln Memorial during the "Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks" protest against racism and police brutality on August 28, 2020, in Washington, DC.ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images Over the decades, Black History Month has become a time when topics such as slavery, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Era are often tackled in schools and in the press. But that wasnât what Carter G. Woodson, known as the âFather of Black History,â meant for the time to solely be about when he founded Negro History Week on Feb. 7, 1926.