Celebrating Black History Month with April Gray

Hello! My name is April Gray and I am the Owner of C.C. Monroe Event Design. C.C. Monroe Event Design is a Los Angeles based full-service event planning company, specializing in modern, luxury-relatable events. In addition to running my own company, I am also a mom to my 4 kids (Caleb, Kensley, Caysen and Kamille).

While Black History Month is celebrated during the month of February, it is important to my husband and me that our kids are exposed to African-American culture and contributions all year long. As a family, we watch movies such as “Self-Made Inspired by The Life of Madam C.J. Walker” and tv shows such as “Black-ish”, which depict African-American success stories and positive African-American family life. We fill our home with books by African American authors, which touch on topics such as loving the skin you are in, as well as celebrating diversity.  In our household, we try to infuse black history into everyday life. My husband who is also a firefighter participates in the annual Martin Luther King Parade. During family vacations, we have visited slave quarters and historic civil rights landmarks.   It is our goal to expose our children to the plight of African-Americans yet always instill a sense of pride by highlighting the many accomplishments and stories of achievement.

During Black History Month, we dive deeper and learn more about the not so famous African-Americans and their contributions not learned about in school. Our older kids select a figure in history to research and at the end of the month, they deliver a summary on that person. For our younger kids, our bedtime stories in February center around African-American leaders. Currently our favorite books are, “Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History” by Vashti Harrison and “The Youngest Marcher” by Cynthia Levinson. After reading the book “The Youngest Marcher,” which is the story about Audrey Faye Hendricks my kids were eager to learn more. We googled Audrey to further learn about her life and accomplishments. We discussed what it must have felt like spending time in jail as a child. We also discussed the Children’s March of 1963 and had an age-appropriate discussion about segregation. I love seeing their little minds at work trying to understand how there can be different rules based solely on one’s appearance. I know these conversations will stick with them and apply later in life on how they should treat others. Black History Month is a time for our family to celebrate and reflect on our culture using the past to help shape the future.

The current pandemic has made it difficult to participate in many Black History Month activities. However, CAAM (California African American Museum) has created several virtual events throughout the month of February for families to enjoy!