I remember being in school as a kid and wondering why we were only taught about historical Black figures during February. I then remember being confused because we only talked about well-known names like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. There was the occasional mention of Frederick Douglass or George Washington Carver but I never really learned about any other Black Americans in school. It was the same thing every year. I remember there being no real emphasis on how Black Americans contributed to the history of the United States. Black History Month felt like a speed bump — over just as quickly as it started and pretty uneventful.