One hundred years ago, Dr. Carter G. Woodson created and launched the inaugural Negro History Week after his professors told him that Black people didn’t have a history worth studying. Negro History Week built on the success of Douglass Day and quickly spread through Black communities in the United States. Fifty years later, at the urging of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, President Gerald Ford called for Americans to celebrate Black History Month, which was finally ordered by Presidential Proclamation in 1986. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Jarvis Givens, Professor of Education and African and African American Studies at Harvard University and author of I'll Make Me a World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month.

Our theme song is “Frogs Legs Rag,” composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” with lyrics by James Weldon Johnson and music by Jon Rosamond Johnson; this public domain performance is by the United States Army Field Band and the 82nd Airborne Chorus and features Staff Sgt. Kyra Dorn. The episode image is a portrait of Carter G. Woodson taken on 19 December 1915 by Addison Norton Scurlock; the image is in the public domain and is available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional Sources:

• “The Origins of Douglass Day,” by Jennifer Morris, Smithsonian Digital Volunteers, February 14, 2023.“The story behind the Frederick Douglass birthday celebration,” by Scott Bomboy, National Constitution Center, February 14, 2024.
• “Black History Month: A Commemorative Observances Legal Research Guide,” Library of Congress.
• “The Origins of Black History Month,” by Daryl Michael Scott, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
• “Here's the story behind Black History Month — and why it's celebrated in February,” by Jonathan Franklin, NPR, February 2, 2022.
• “W. E. B. Du Bois and Black History Month,” by Phillip Luke Sinitiere, Black Perspectives, February 18, 2016.
• “Message on the Observance of Black History Month, February 1976,” by Gerald Ford, February 10, 1976.
• “Proclamation 5443—National Black (Afro-American) History Month, 1986,” by Ronald Reagan, February 24, 1986.
• “Proclamation: National Black History Month, 2026,” by Donald Trump, February 3, 2026.

Reed Peggram, born in Boston in 1914, a gay Black man in a world that put up barriers to his success, excelled at Harvard before heading to a Europe on the brink of war. In Europe he fell in love with a Danist artist, and despite pleas from everyone in his life and from the US government to leave the war-torn continent, Reed refused to depart without Arne, leading to his imprisonment in an Italian concentration camp. Even then, Reed overcame the barriers in his way, escaping with Arne and surviving until they were rescued by the US Army. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Ethelene Whitmire, Professor of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and author of The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram: The Man Who Stared Down World War II in the Name of Love.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode audio is “Do it Again!” composed by George Gershwin and performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra; the piece, which is in the public domain, was recorded on March 28, 1922 in New York, and is available via the Library of Congress National Jukebox. The episode image is a 1935 photograph of Reed Peggram retrieved from Reed Peggram's Harvard student records in the Harvard University archives; it is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional source:

• “Unpacking Reed Peggram’s Library,” by Ethelene Whitmire, Journal of Cultural Analytics, vol. 9, no. 2, May 2024.

Charles C. Diggs, Jr., founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, spent 25 years in Congress, pushing for change, on issues from segregation in commercial aviation to home-rule for the residents of Washington, DC, to the anti-apartheid movement. His legislative accomplishments were overshadowed by his downfall, and today his story doesn’t receive the attention of other Civil Rights heroes. Joining me in this episode is Dr. Marion Orr, Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science at Brown University and author of House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs Jr.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-audio is “Bad Luck Blues,” performed by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey in 1923; the performance is in the public domain. The episode image is an official Congressional photo of Charles Diggs, Jr., in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons.

Additional sources:

• “DIGGS, Charles Coles, Jr.,” Office of the Historian, United States House of Representatives.
• “Charles Diggs, 75, Congressman Censured Over Kickbacks,” by Irvin Molotsky, The New York Times, August 26, 1998.
• “Eyes on the Prize; Interview with Charles Coles Diggs Jr., 1985-11-06 [video],” Film and Media Archive, Washington University in St. Louis, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC.
• “Regional Council of Negro Leadership,” by Ten Ownby, Mississippi Encyclopedia.
• “Mound Bayou (1887- ),” by Herbert G. Ruffin II, BlackPast, January 18, 2007.
• “Emmett Till's Death Inspired a Movement,” Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture.
• “About the CBC,” Congressional Black Caucus.
• “D.C. Home Rule,” Council of the District of Columbia.