February 1 – March 1
Celebrate Black History Month with your children through books and film
Every February offers us yet another valuable invitation to pause and reflect on Black history, celebrating the countless contributions, sacrifices, and breakthroughs of our not-so-distant allies and ancestors. It is a time to consider our progress—not to mention the opportunity still ahead of us.
As you go about celebrating Black History Month—which cannot be separated from American history—enjoy and enlighten your family with these books, films, and quotes, from our home to yours. And remember, as Martin Luther King, Jr. powerfully observed, “We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”
Book lists
To celebrate Black History Month with your children, consider the hundreds of “living” books in these free lists and curated bundles.
Film and television productions
To complement your children’s reading during Black history, you might also consider watching these fine productions.
Quotes about Black History Month
Every now and again, we all need some inspiration to keep going, while never forgetting our past. Find solidarity in these words and insights from Black heroes and allies for diversity who have come—and gone—before us.
“If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go.”
James Baldwin
“We cannot live sanely unless we know that other peoples are as we are with a difference, that their history is as ours, with a difference, that they too have been represented by their poets and their artists, that they too have their literature and their national life.”
Charlotte Mason
“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.”
Maya Angelou
“A people without the knowledge of their past history is like a tree without roots.”
Marcus Garvey
“The thing about Black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up.”
Henry Louis Gates
“When we’re talking about diversity, it’s not a box to check. It is a reality that should be deeply felt and held and valued by all of us.”
Ava DuVernay
“I’m very proud to be Black, but Black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am, nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.”
Denzel Washington
“You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it’s right.”
Rosa Parks
“I’m Black and I’m proud!”
James Brown
“History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.”
Michelle Obama
“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”
Desmond Tutu
This celebration of Black History Month was brought to you—with love—by Stories of Color.