Malcom X was wrong. "Black" history most definitely did begin in chains. African history began a lot farther back than that, obviously, but that's not the point of black history month. The point of black history month is to try to raise awareness of important contributions that blacks have made to American history and to help raise the collective confidence and consciousness of black America. We can argue about how successful black history month has been, but let's not conflate black history and African history; they are definitely not the same thing. There is no Asian or Hispanic month, because we did not systematically steal these groups from their homeland, enslave them, and then fight a war to ensure that they would be kept in bondage, only to legally codify their sub-human status in law after their freedom was won for another hundred years. No other groups have that history--that's fucking black history.