Around 1970, the expansion of the week into a month became an increasingly favored idea. An unsigned wire service story, found in newspapers in early 2021, explains:
The week-long event officially became Black History Month in 1976 when U.S. president Gerald Ford extended the recognition to “honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Black History Month has been celebrated in the United States every February since.
President Ford’s attachment to the concept of Black History originated several decades earlier. In the early 1930s, Gerald Ford had been a star football player at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He was team MVP for the 1934 season.
One of Ford’s friends on the team was a player named Willis Ward. The University of Michigan had African-American plays on the team since 1890. Gerald Ford and Willis Ward were roommates when the team went on the road.
In 1934, a crisis developed when Georgia Tech was scheduled to play Michigan. The game was in Ann Arbor at Michigan Stadium. But Georgia Tech had stipulated that it would only play if Willis Ward were benched for the entire game.
Gerald Ford was outraged at the racist action. He threatened to resign from the team, and hundreds of U of M students protested the situation - by some counts, over a thousand. In the end, Willis Ward told his teammates to play the game and to win for him.
The Michigan players were motivated by Ward’s words, and Gerald Ford especially so. Michigan won the game, and Ford distinguished himself in tackling the Georgia Tech players.
Buddy Moorehouse, who directed a documentary film about Willis Ward and Gerald Ford, explains that “During the game, there was this player on Georgia Tech that was using racial slurs and talking trash. Ford and this other Michigan lineman put a hit on this guy that knocked him out of the game.”
Ford apparently hit the Georgia players with particular ferocity, angered by the injustice which they had inflicted on his friend.
Willis Ward and Gerald Ford remained friends until Ward died in 1983. Their experiences on the U of M football team shaped Ford’s thinking. When Ford endorsed Black History Month, it was merely an extension of his college teamwork.
