The U.S. Census Bureau is helping to promote Black History Month, which started Feb. 1, with an assortment of stats and a brief history of the national month's establishment.
On Jan. 25, the Census Bureau noted in a release that "the event was first celebrated during the second week of February 1926, selected because it coincides with the birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and abolitionist/writer Frederick Douglass (February 14)."
At that time, it was originally called "Negro History Week," created by historian Carter G. Woodson to "commemorate and celebrate the contributions to our nation made by people of African descent."
During the bicentennial of the United States, the weeklong celebrated event was then expanded to a month. Since then, every sitting US president has proclaimed February as National African American History Month, according to the press release.
As part of their announcement of Black History Month, the US Department of Commerce published a series of facts surrounding the demographics and statistics of Black people in the United States.
Currently, 89.4% of African Americans aged 25 and older had a high school diploma or higher as of 2020, while 30.7% of the employed Black population ages 16 and older working in management, business, science, and arts occupations in 2019.
