February is the month of love, and we all know that Valentine’s Day is the day of love. Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.

V-Day became popular when celebrated around 17th century in Great Britain. In the 18th century, it became common for friends and lovers to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes.

By 1900, printed cards replaced the hand written letters due to improvements in printing technology. These printed cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a direct way. For example, for someone that had a crush but was too discouraged to act on it, that individual could give that person a card of such. Cheaper postage rates also contributed to the rise in popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings.

Exchanging hand-made valentines began in the early 1700s. Esther A. Howland began selling mass-produced Valentines in American. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons, and colorful pictures known as “scrap.”

Currently, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year. Valentine’s Day cards are the second largest card-selling holiday of the year.

Now that we’ve discussed the day of love and its role it plays in the month of February, lets discuss real history. Along with the day of love, February is also Black History Month. I would like for us to acknowledge those who played a role in the making history for African Americans.

It is not often that we reflect or have remembrance for those who made history but are no longer with us. I ran into a psychology major, Khadijah Brown, and I asked her opinion on the month of February.

Shaneisha Jones: What do you think of the month of February?

Khadijah Brown: The month of February to me is Black History Month, I do not focus on the fact that it is Valentine’s Day.

SJ: Why is that?

KB: I have never really celebrated Valentine’s Day, even as a child I did not exchange cards like other students did. I was a part of African Dance Company, so all we discussed for the month of February was Black History.

Let us honor the contributions of African Americans with these facts:

1) Black History Month started with a college fraternity. Carter G. Woodson, the son of former slaves and the second black person to graduate from Harvard University, prompted the fraternity Omega Psi Phi to create Negro History and Literature Week in 1920. Later on, the name was changed to Negro History Week and eventually became what we now know as Black History Month.

2) Black History Month is celebrated in February because both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were born in February. In 1926, Woodson decided that Negro History Week would be celebrated in February as an homage to Lincoln, who was the U.S. president who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and Douglass, who was a leading abolitionist of his time.

3) Black History Month became nationally recognized in 1976. This occurred in the midst of the Black Panther Movement of the 1970s.

4) Black History Month is celebrated in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Both the U.S. and Canada celebrate in February, but in the U.K., it’s celebrated in the month of October.

5) Black History Month is about recognizing the many contributions of African Americans, including not only political activists, but also inventors, craftsmen, artists, and more. Did you know that George T. Sampson invented one of the first clothes dryers? Or that Thomas J. Martin patented the fire extinguisher?