People often question why Black History Month happens in February, the shortest month in the calendar year.

Historians say theres a simple answer: Black History Month which began in 1926 as Negro History Week is in February because it coincides with the birthdays of two important figures in the abolitionist movement: President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

February 12 is the birth date of Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, freeing enslaved people in the Confederate states. February 14 is the birth date abolitionist, and orator Frederick Douglass chose for himself after escaping slavery in 1838.

There was no sinister reason for Februarys selection, said Burnis R. Morris, a professor of journalism and mass communications at Marshall University and a biographer of Carter G. Woodson, the creator of Negro History Week whod later be called The Father of Black History Month.

Morris told HuffPost, The study of Black History has two periods: before Woodson and after Woodson.

Woodson, who was born in 1875 in Virginia to formerly enslaved parents, wanted to honor the heritage and achievements of Black Americans in the wake of emancipation.

Sixty years after the end of slavery, those contributions had largely been ignored in history books, or worse, distorted and misrepresented, said LaGarrett King, a professor and director of the Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education at the University at Buffalo.

When Black peoples history was written, the narratives painted Black people as savages who had to be saved by Europeans, he told HuffPost. Additionally, slavery was written as a sort of humane act, and it was suggested that Black people were actually happy during enslavement.