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![From left: violinist Jessie Montgomery and jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson From left: violinist Jessie Montgomery and jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarpe/en/home/home-family/friends-family/info-2024/black-history-month-events/_jcr_content/root/container_main/container_body_main/container_body1/container_body_cf/container_image/articlecontentfragment/cfimage.coreimg.50.932.jpeg/content/dam/aarp/home-and-family/family-and-friends/2024/01/1140-black-history-month-2024-music.jpg)
Black History Month is a time for all Americans to reflect on the history and contributions of African Americans to the nation. This year marks the 98th commemoration of Black History Month, which was started by scholar and educator Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week in 1926.
Increased recognition in mainstream America of the observance has bolstered educational and cultural programming, events and exhibits that keep the memory, histories and achievements of Black Americans alive throughout the year.
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This year’s theme, chosen by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is African Americans and the Arts.
![left shroeder cherry handling one of his puppets right a church activist organization puppet scene made by shroeder cherry left shroeder cherry handling one of his puppets right a church activist organization puppet scene made by shroeder cherry](https://cdn.aarp.net/content/dam/aarpe/en/home/home-family/friends-family/info-2024/black-history-month-events/_jcr_content/root/container_main/container_body_main/container_body1/container_body_cf/body_one_cf_one/par3/articlecontentfragme/cfimage.coreimg.50.932.jpeg/content/dam/aarp/home-and-family/family-and-friends/2024/01/1140-cherry-schroeder.jpg)
“There is such a broad wealth of expression and historic accomplishment throughout the African diaspora,” says Schroeder Cherry, 69, a mixed media artist and puppeteer. “It is important to know that people who identify as Black are not of a monolithic culture.”
In-person events
Cherry, who was recently featured on PBS’s Craft in America with his bubbly troupe of puppets, will perform a free show, “Civil Rights Children’s Crusade,” on Feb. 10 (registration encouraged) at City Lore, a pioneering gallery of urban folklore, in New York City. The show is part of City Lore’s exhibit “The Calling: The Transformative Power of African American Doll and Puppet Making,” featuring 26 nationally renowned African American artists who are elder visual storytellers chronicling the history, identity and culture of their communities.
Cherry will perform his show in Baltimore on Feb. 17 (free, registration encouraged) as part of the Walters Art Museum celebration of storytelling and an expansive exhibit and citywide display of the work of Elizabeth Talford Scott (1916–2011). Talford Scott was a fiber artist and quiltmaker who moved the latter craft from domestic function to sculptural wall hangings using repurposed objects that tell narratives of familial history and more.
The Harlem Chamber Players — an ethnically diverse collective of professional classical musicians — hosts a season of affordable or free events, and the group will perform a free concert for its 16th Annual Black History Month Celebration on Feb. 15 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York.
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