Black History Month is recognised in the US and Canada in February. In 1926 historian Carter G. Woodson called the second week of February to be 'Negro History Week'. Abraham Lincoln's birthday is the 12th, and Frederick Douglas' is the 14th. Kent State University began to take the entire month in 1970. Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball on April 15, 1947. He suffered much verbal, and even physical abuse that season. He died in 1972. Fifty years after that first Brooklyn Dodgers game all the teams in Major League Baseball retired his uniform number '42'.
Barack Obama is the Jackie Robinson of his generation, and will be so fêted in years to come.
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