Call to end Black History Month

Shukree Hassan Tilghman's film 'More Than A Month' calls for the end of America's 'Black History Month', which marks significant moments of African American history, reports SBS' Michelle Hanna.

The opening scenes of Shukree Hassan Tilghman's film 'More Than A Month' has actor Morgan Freeman telling a 60 Minutes reporter in 2005 how much he dislikes the annual celebration of African American history in the United States.

"I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history."

Hearing these words consolidated Shukree's suspicions that he too did not like the idea of Black History Month. It eventually led to him going back to film school and creating his own film, which aired on American PBS channel during Black History Month this year.

"I loved Black History Month as a kid when I was at school,” he told SBS. “You know, it really provides sense of empowerment, a sense of, you know, what's the word, self-esteem, feeling good for knowing about this particular aspect of American history."

"But as I got older, I started to question why it was the same sort of stock characters that always got trotted out - Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass - and I started to wonder what this meant, and it felt a little condescending after a while."

'More Than A Month' charts Shukree's journey to challenge and be challenged by the idea of ending this month. He has often amusing conversations with his politically active parents and shows their shock that their son would seek to end something so hard fought-for by African Americans.

The intention of the film could easily be misunderstood. Scenes of Shukree wearing a sandwich board with the text 'End Black History Month' in the film were widely used in the marketing and promotion of the film.

But Shukree is in fact calling for African American history to be considered as American history and taught all year round, not confined to a month.

Yet the film's proposition made many feel uneasy.

"The fear is that if you don't have a Black History Month, then you will have no mention of black people in history,” Shukree said. “That's a little exaggerated but that's the basic sentiment of people."

In the film, he notes wryly that Black History Month takes place each year in February - the shortest month of the year - and questions the need to separate African American history from American history in a supposedly 'post-racial' nation with an African American president.

"Ultimately it's not an either/or proposition. The truth is that what I'm for - what is true and what is a result of the film - is that a lot of people are more aware of this idea of having black history or African American history be perceived as an integral and necessary through-line through American history,” he explains three months after the film's premiere.

“That you can't know American history without knowing African American history - they are in fact one and the same."

But ultimately, he says the point of the film is "not so much about ending it as much as transcending" Black History Month.

"There is a difference between having Black History Month and needing to have it and that's really the key; we don't want to need to have it in order to get those stories told."

At time of publishing, there were no plans to show the film in Australia