In this op-ed, Jenn M. Jackson, a writer, activist, and assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University, explains the significance of Black History Month.

When I was in high school, a white boy in my honors English class said, “The whole concept of ‘Black History’ is racist.”

“History is history,” he said. “Calling certain history ‘black’ is racist against everyone else.”

This was the first time I heard someone voice concern about the existence of Black History Month. But, later, when I shared the experience with my college boyfriend, he shared that he, too, had heard rumblings from his white peers who felt Black History Month was unfair to them. He remembered how the issue became a huge ordeal at his high school.

We sat in a small group of all black students on our dorm floor where only black students lived—a “themed” floor named after the first black students to graduate from the university. It was set aside for black students at the private, predominantly white college and meant to foster togetherness in a sea of perpetual difference.

“One kid even went so far as to write an article about it in our school paper,” he said. A few weeks later, he produced the article for us all to read. It was written for a high school audience by a high schooler in 2001.

“Over the past couple of weeks, Warriors have been reminded on the morning announcements that February is Black History Month. While at first glance Black History Month may appear to be a long-overdue recognition of blacks’ contribution to American history, it is actually subtly racist against blacks because of the unspoken separatist assumptions upon which the month is based,” it read.“Why do we have Black History Month rather than American History month?”

This question, read aloud from the paper by a friend, made every black teen present in that dorm room grumble. I thought the white guy in my high school English class was a fluke. It took me reading that high school newspaper that day to take seriously that these were real concerns some white people might grapple with each February. And my peers and I were far too familiar with what non-black people meant when they preferred the descriptor “American” over “black.” We shared the experience of being both black and American, an experience that often feels as though the two are mutually exclusive.

Among the priceless gems in this “critical essay,” two points stuck out to me during my initial reading. The writer says, “To emphasize the past contribution of one race while ignoring those made by others is ignoring the important links that bind us all together.”

Fundamentally, he was concerned that teaching black history “out of context” wouldn’t effectively convey those lessons to the larger American public. I knew, even back then as a college freshman, that black Americans were not responsible for a general lack of context around American history. Shortly after the period of Reconstruction from roughly 1865 to 1877, black Americans still lived in a state of perpetual racial terror from lynch mobs and state-sanctioned violence in communities across the country, in both the North and South. Black History Month began as “Negro History Week” in 1926, just 61 years after the passing of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which legally abolished slavery, a transcontinental institution that lasted for three centuries in North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean Islands.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, historian and founder of Negro History Week, is often called the “Father of Black History” for his efforts to honor and spread word of the contributions Black Americans have made, ensuring that their work was recognized and accounted for in the history books and narratives of mainstream American life. He chose February for the weeklong celebration, to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.