Black History Month through the eyes of Detroit's leaders
This year for Black History Month, FOX 2 went to the African American leaders in Detroit for them to tell their stories. There are no reporters, no anchors, and no scripts. We wanted to hear directly from the men and women in the African American Community.
FOX 2 crews went directly to the leaders in Detroit: Marvin Winans, Marjorie Harris, Gary Anderson, and Kym Worthy.
Marvin Winans
Winans is the pastor of Perfecting Church and an award-winning gospel singer. He told the story of his family migrating from the Deep South to Detroit in the 1910s. In the 1980s, he started Perfecting Church in Detroit, despite many doubting if it would last. Today, that doubt is gone as a multi-million dollar church is under construction.
"There is a miracle happening on the northeast point of Woodward and 7 Mile," Winans said about the church which he calls an 'anchor' in the community.
Marjorie Harris
Before Violet Lewis started the Lewis College of Business, there wasn't a school for African American women in Detroit. Lewis' daughter, Marjorie Harris, tells her mother's story.
"There were young women who wanted to go to school and she wanted to teach them," Harris said.
The school taught business administration, typing, and accounting - among other curriculum. Harris credits the school with getting women their very first jobs.
Gary Anderson
"Theater in this town needs to be inclusive, it needs to say something about the conditions of people from different backgrounds," Anderson said. That's the mission behind Plowshares Theatre Company.
Anderson said in 1990, black men and women weren't getting work in theatre so the company started to make it possible. The Detroit-based theatre company set out to break new ground for directors, actors, and designers so they can succeed outside of the Motor City.
Kym Worthy
The Wayne County Prosecutor said she has wanted to be a lawyer since she was in Middle School. In the late 1980s, she became an assistant prosecutor and says a lot has changed since then.
"There just were not a lot of prosecutors of color at that time," Worthy said.
In those 25-plus years, Worthy has climbed all the way to the top of the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office.
WATCH all four of our subjects tell their stories in their own words in the video above. No reporters - no anchors - just their words and their voices.
THE HISTORY OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH
It was Carter G. Woodson, a founder of the Association for the Study of African American History, who first came up with the idea of the celebration that became Black History Month. Woodson, the son of recently freed Virginia slaves, who went on to earn a Ph.D in history from Harvard, originally came up with the idea of Negro History Week to encourage black Americans to become more interested in their own history and heritage. Woodson worried that black children were not being taught about their ancestors' achievements in American schools in the early 1900s.
"If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated," Woodson said.
WHY FEBRUARY?
Woodson chose February for Negro History Week because it had the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, and Douglass, a former slave who did not know his exact birthday, celebrated his on Feb. 14.
Daryl Michael Scott, a Howard University history professor and former ASAAH president, said Woodson chose that week because black Americans were already celebrating Lincoln's and Douglass's birthdays. With the help of black newspapers, he promoted that week as a time to focus on African-American history as part of the celebrations that were already ongoing.
The first Negro History Week was announced in February 1926.
"This was a community effort spearheaded by Woodson that built on tradition, and built on black institutional life and structures to create a new celebration that was a week long, and it took off like a rocket," Scott said.
WHY THE CHANGE FROM A WEEK TO A MONTH?
Negro History Week was wildly successful, but Woodson felt it needed more.
Woodson's original idea for Negro History Week was for it to be a time for student showcases of the African-American history they learned the rest of the year, not as the only week black history would be discussed, Scott said. Woodson later advocated starting a Negro History Year, saying that during a school year "a subject that receives attention one week out of 36 will not mean much to anyone."
Individually several places, including West Virginia in the 1940s and Chicago in the 1960s, expanded the celebration into Negro History Month. The civil rights and Black Power movement advocated for an official shift from Black History Week to Black History Month, Scott said, and, in 1976, on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Negro History Week, the Association for the Study of African American History made the shift to Black History Month.
PRESIDENTIAL RECOGNITION
Every president since Gerald R. Ford through Barack Obama has issued a statement honoring the spirit of Black History Month.
Ford first honored Black History Week in 1975, calling the recognition "most appropriate," as the country developed "a healthy awareness on the part of all of us of achievements that have too long been obscured and unsung." The next year, in 1976, Ford issued the first Black History Month commemoration, saying with the celebration "we can seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history."
President Jimmy Carter added in 1978 that the celebration "provides for all Americans a chance to rejoice and express pride in a heritage that adds so much to our way of life." President Ronald Reagan said in 1981 that "understanding the history of black Americans is a key to understanding the strength of our nation."
Trump issued a proclamation Thursday declaring February as National African American History Month. The text names Katherine Johnson, a mathematician and one of three black women whose roles in the space race were featured in the recent film "Hidden Figures."