In response to both you and thenewgreen, I think that you're kind of right - we shouldn't have a specific time for special attention devoted to them. However, I think that such a thing is needed, at least right now. Why? Because without black history month, no one would ever hear about black history at all. How much does any given student know about Hispanic history? Asian history? Probably not much, and the reason is that no one is saying "ok, this month we are, as a nation, going to be aware of these people and their history." Now, we aren't exactly enlightened about black history, but on the other hand at least we put out that cursory effort which is a lot more than others get.

So, long story short, we shouldn't want to have a specific month for black history, but right now, we need it. Otherwise we would never hear anything about it. The fix? Every month is black history month. And Asian history month. And Hispanic history month, and women's history and European history and native American history and Middle Eastern history.