Exploring A Century Of Black Achievement And Why Studying It Today Still Matters

Send us Fan MailA hundred years after Carter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week, we step back and ask a simple question with big consequences: how do we choose what to remember?  Educator and former coach Daryl Page  charts the living map of Black history—its origins, its overlooked corners, and the practical ways we can study and share it with the next generation.We begin with the roots: why February, how the month became official in 1976, and the milestones that give it muscle—from the Greensboro sit-ins and Rosa Parks’s catalytic act to Jackie Robinson’s debut and the elections of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris. Daryl brings it home with a curated reading list for classrooms and book clubs: Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Richard Wright’s The Man Who Was Almost a Man, James Baldwin’s The Rockpile, Langston Hughes’s Cora Unashamed, and Eugenia Collier’s Marigolds. Each piece is grounded in place—Arkansas, Harlem, Iowa, rural Maryland—turning geography into character and history into lived experience.We also spotlight the backbone of movements: Black women who organized, calculated, invented, and led. From Harriet Tubman and Ella Baker to Katherine Johnson, Marie Van Brittan Brown, and contemporary trailblazers, their work links abolition, civil rights, STEM innovation, and cultural change. And we trace the power of sport to challenge systems, celebrating pioneers like Jesse Owens, Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, Wilma Rudolph, Bill Russell, and modern icons such as Serena and Venus Williams, Simone Biles, and Michael Jordan—athletes who turned excellence into advocacy.This conversation blends story, strategy, and actionable ideas. If you’re a teacher, parent, or lifelong learner, you’ll leave with a reading plan, historical context, and ways to use media to spark curiosity. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves great books and big ideas, and leave a review with the title you’ll read first. What will you study this month?Support the show