Black history on display at county library

The Black History Month display at the Lebanon-Laclede County Library provides insight into national, state and local Black history during the month of February. According to the Library of Congress’s website, the month has its origins in the 1915 founding of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History), which scheduled the first Negro History Week in February 1926. The week selected held the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. In 1975, the LOC states that President Ford urged Americans to “recognize the important contribution made to our nation’s life and culture by black citizens,” and later issued an urging to observe Black History Month the next in coinciding with the ASALH’s expansion of the observance. The Lebanon-Laclede County Library’s display included features on famous national individuals such as Martin Luther King, Jr., a prominent leader in the 1960s civil rights movement; Harriet Tubman, conductor of the Underground Railroad, an aid network for those escaping slavery; and Rosa Parks, who refused to participate in segregated busing and inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott. For more on this story, see Saturday's LCR.