28 days. 28 days, 672 hours, 40,320 minutes or 2,419,200 seconds is all the time that the nation allows to African American history, and that is if it’s not a leap year. Except for the nationwide King Holiday, February is the month that African American’s and their contributions to the country are spotlighted. This is wrong!

This country was built from the blood, sweat and tears of our African American ancestors who endured too much to name and still they remain unnoticed in mainstream society.

A big issue in school’s today is the limitations for teaching African Americans History. I’m sure that we can name the same men and women that were taught to us in school in February.

Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Phyllis Wheatley, and George Washington Carver are exceptional pioneers of their time, but there is so much more African American history than just this handful of people.

What about Wallace Rayfield, a legendary craftsman who was the second in the nation to be licensed and the first black architect in Alabama.

Rayfield’s work as an architect consisted of designing the most significant buildings in civil rights history including 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. that was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan while four little girls were inside, Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr. was the co-pastor alongside his father Martin Luther King Sr., and the Trinity Building in South Africa.

Leroy Hassell Sr. was Virginia’s first black chief justice. Hassell was appointed in 2003 and died last week. He became the second black justice on the court after John Charles Thomas.

Does Charlotte Hawkins Brown ring a bell? She founded Palmer Memorial Institute, a day and boarding school and the first black one in the area, located in Sedalia, NC along with the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum. Dr. Brown was regarded as an educator, lecturer, civil rights activist, author, and cultural leader.

I do not intend for this column to belittle any of the African American hero’s that are often drilled into our heads.

I am using it to challenge us as African Americans to look beyond what we are taught or given.

We as African Americans should challenge the annual time frame. We should challenge what and whom we are taught and try to expand on our knowledge of our own people.

Not just those in the past but also those in the present who are making significant strides and changes today for tomorrow’s future.

Locally, regionally, statewide and nationally there are bound to be unrecognized African Americans that played a crucial part in our freedom and successes.

• Chanel Davis