At different times throughout American history, it has been deemed good and moral to segregate ourselves by religion, creed, or color. Now it seems as if it is acceptable to segregate ourselves by date of the year. We have been taught to call February “Black History Month”, not only confining and insulting the proud history of the African-American culture by relegating it to just 28 days, but misunderstanding what it truly means to be American.
America was not founded as one white nation under god, but as the birthplace of an idea. That idea was that anyone, of any class or background, could achieve anything with perseverance. That ideal was no more true to the white backwoods Kentucky boy that grew up to be Abraham Lincoln, than it was to the young black preacher in Montgomery, Alabama named Martin Luther King Jr.
There have, of course, been those who have been willfully ignorant to the ideals of equality. The southern plantation owners justifying their acts through a false sense of fascist superiority; those enslavers of their fellow countrymen who have littered the pages of American history with drops of blood; those who have let their bigoted fears overcome their desire for liberty.
And this should never be forgotten, nor should the bold struggles of African-Americans to break the shackles of slavery, or the noble sacrifices of those who believed in the fulfillment of the ideal of American equality. However, that is not black history. That is American history.
American history is that of enslavement, just as American history is Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. American history is that of segregation, just as it is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial speaking of a dream. American History is John Wilkes Booth rolling over in his grave as Barack Obama is named President of the United States. American history is African-American history.
King once proclaimed, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.” That table of brotherhood does not come closer to realization through the segregation of our histories, but keeps it at a distance. And until we can truly come together and celebrate the fact that history cut us all from the same clothe of humanity, the dream will never be realized.
To say that the quest for racial equality has been fulfilled is ignorant. However saying that we can end racism by segregating the months of the year is just as absurd. The only way to overcome the centuries of racism that have preceded us is to continue the quest for change, which started in 1865.  
We must continue the movement towards a brighter tomorrow in which true unity exists; A unity in equality where we are defined by name, not by color, creed, or religion. However, we cannot achieve this by continuing to discriminate through trivial things such as month of the year.  
Actor Morgan Freeman, an advocate against Black History Month, may have said it best when interviewed by 60 Minutes host Mike Wallace. When asked, “How are we going to get rid of racism?” Freeman replied, “I’m going to stop calling you a white man, and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace, and you know me as Morgan Freeman.”
We have learned to call February Black History Month as a way of making peace with America’s past when, in truth, it is the very thing tearing us apart. The mentality that we are so obscenely different from one another that we need to segregate our history is demolishing dreams of equality, and we will not find the unity we seek until we reconcile the fact that Black history is, as it always was, American History.