What's good, Joel? I'm Gene Demby.

I'm Shrine Mighty Soul Maraji and this is Code Switch.

From NPR. Shrine, it is somehow somehow February already.

I don't know how that happened. It's not just February. It's February 2021.

The future.

So that's just a lot for me to process. But it's also, in case you didn't know, Gene, Black History Month.

Shrine, I knew that.

Of course.

Of course I knew that. Also, the shortest month of the year, don't think we ain't noticed.

It is not fair. Although at least it's one entire month and not half of one month and half

of another, but I digress. Like let you know heritage month, that's not the heritage month.

Yeah. So Black History Month. Let's drop a little history on everyone for Black History Month.

Oh, well.

Way back in 1926, the historian, Carter G. Woodson wanted to bring new attention to all the ways

that Black people had shaped the world. So he started something called Negro History Week

in early February. Why February though?

I'm glad you asked, Shrine. Both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

What February? Is there both born in February?

Shout out to all the Aquariuses in the house.

The Aquarius.

Of course.

And at that time, I didn't know this, but at the time, Woodson started Negro History Week.

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