In addition to holding events on campus, the BSA will seek to educate students about black history by publishing a Fact of the Day on page 4 of The Crimson throughout the month.

Two years ago, then-BMF president Terry forwarded black history facts to House e-mail lists daily in February. After some students in Lowell House objected to the messages, calling them “spam,” others raised accusations of racism. The House Masters and Senior Tutor e-mailed Lowell students asking them to exercise courtesy.

Terry said yesterday that he hopes the entire campus will participate in Black History Month festivities and combat negative images of black people.

“It’s the one time in the year when people are forced to come to terms with the fact that black people are essential and at the center of history in a lot of ways,” he said.

This annual celebration of black heritage was the brainchild of a black Harvard graduate.

Carter G. Woodson ’12, the second African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, started “Negro History Week” in 1926, a tradition which evolved into Black History Month. He chose February because it is the month in which both Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were born.

—Staff writer Andrew C. Esensten can be reached at esenst@fas.harvard.edu.