Little Known Black History Fact: 

Eliza Ann Gardner

DL Chandler


Eliza Ann Gardner was a Boston abolitionist who went on to become the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church’s missionary society. She was born on May 28, 1831, and was a strong women’s rights advocate.

Gardner was born in New York City and moved to Boston where her father became a successful ship contractor. Her parents were active in the political world, and their home in the West End served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

After school, where she was a stellar student but held back from opportunities due to her gender, Gardner aligned herself with the AME Zion church and became a dressmaker to make ends meet. She also joined the anti-slavery movement, linking with the likes of Frederick Douglass and others. She founded the missionary society in 1876, which raised funds to send missionaries to Africa. She is known as the "mother" of the society.

Gardner convinced AME Zion leaders to allow women to become ordained, and she later founded the Women's Era Club, the first Black club for women in Boston.

Gardner passed in 1922.

                            From BlackAmericaWeb.com

Why the Month of February?

Is February Black History Month Because It's the Shortest Month?

     I've often wondered that, if February was chosen because it held the least amount of days that society would have to bear all the Black History 'hoopla'... Of course that was when I was much younger and much more 'revolutionary' than I am now!! LOL

     Not only have I grown up though, I also learned that Black History Month was started by a person of color, so there was no question of February being chosen for a negative reason. I knew there had to be something else, and finally I've learned what it is.

     As I posted previously, Black History Month began as Negro History Week, and was begun by Carter G. Woodson.
 (You can read about it at On This Date in 1926....)  

     Starting with Gerald Ford in 1976, every president has declared February as Black History Month. It has never been a law or something the government said had to be, it's just something all the presidents designated.

     When it was just a week, it was the second week in February, so when it was expanded February was the obvious month, but the reason it was chosen for it in the first place was because two important birthdays both occur in that month—that of Abraham Lincoln,  the author of the Emancipation Proclamation (February 12), and that of Frederick Douglass, an early African American abolitionist (he never knew the exact date, but he chose February 14 to celebrate.)

Knowing this I've begun to wonder, will there be a Black History Month?
   
   


from 101 Little Known Black History Facts  http://pickettsmill.typepad.com/files/black20history20101_facts-1.pdf