Black History Month (BHM) is the brainchild of late scholar and historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson. The celebration of Black accomplishment and progress started as Black History Week in 1926 and became a month-long observance in the late 1960s. Since its inception, the jubilee celebrates the undeniable legacy and impact of Black culture, genius, and the dark past of the enslaved in the U.S. To see and sample the beauty of Black History Month, support local Black businesses, listen, read, and watch. Here are my three recommendations, plus some extra credit.

1. Read The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.
   The incredible and fascinating read tells the story of the Great Migration of Blacks from the American south to the north in the early years of the 20th century to the 1970s from the perspective of three protagonists.
2. Watch The Women of Brewster Place.
   It is a film adaptation of Gloria Naylor’s book by the same name and tells the story of several Black women from different generations living in a Chicago tenement and their societal and generational problems.
3. Listen to "A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina)" by Terence Blanchard.
   Blanchard, a jazz trumpeter and composer, is the writer of the score for Spike Lee’s "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," a documentary about the response and ills of Hurricane Katrina.

Plus, some extra credit:

• Listen to At the Close of a Century, the four-disc compilation is a collection of the legendary works of writer, musician, and composer Stevie Wonder. He’s my fave!
• Watch The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, the PBS documentary film series presented and written by lauded scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., offers a comprehensive view of African American history from the African continent to today.

In the words of James Weldon Johnson, the author of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the Black national anthem: "We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last, where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.”

Black history's future is in its people and will always have a place in American history.

Joyce-Zoe Farley, Ph.D., is the visiting assistant professor of African American Studies and Public History in the Department of History and African American Studies Program at UAB.