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'Makes My Teeth Itch': Morgan Freeman Shares His Thoughts On Black History Month
Veteran actor Morgan Freeman has reignited the conversation surrounding Black History Month. In a recent interview with Variety, the 87-year-old expressed his strong disapproval of the concept.
Morgan Freeman does not like celebrating Black History Month and once again he has shared why so. After previously calling this celebration an “insult” and something that “relegates” the history to only a month, Freeman in his recent interview with Variety dismissed the idea of Black History Month. In his decades-long career, Freeman earned five Academy Award nominations and one win for the film Million Dollar Baby. He also earned a Kennedy Center Honor in 2008 and the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Golden Globe's lifetime achievement award, in 2012.
Morgan Freeman speaks out against Black History Month
Renowned actor Morgan Freeman recently expressed his disapproval of Black History Month.
"I detest it," the 87-year-old actor told Variety on Saturday. "The mere idea of it. You are going to give me the shortest month in a year? And you are going to celebrate ‘my’ history?! This whole idea makes my teeth itch. It’s not right."
Freeman emphasized, "My history is American history. It’s the one thing in this world I am interested in, beyond making money, having a good time and getting enough sleep."
The importance of understanding American history was stressed by Freeman. He connected this to his upcoming project, "The Gray House," which tells the true story of three women who served as Union spies during the Civil War. Freeman is the executive producer of this film.
"If you don’t know your past, if you don’t remember it, you are bound to repeat it," he said.
The Gray House, directed by Roland Joffé, the series also features Mary-Louise Parker, Amethyst Davis, Daisy Head, and Ben Vereen, and it was recently premiered at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival.
This is not the first time Morgan Freeman has called out against it
Even previously the actor expressed his dislike for the phrase in an interview with The Times in April 2023, when he questioned both "Black History Month" and the specific term "African-American."
"Black History Month is an insult," Freeman told The Times. "You're going to relegate my history to a month... Also 'African-American' is an insult."
He added that he doesn't subscribe to that title. Black people have had different titles all the way back to the N-word and he does not know how these things receive such a grip, but everyone uses 'African-American'.
"What does it really mean? Most black people in this part of the world are mongrels," Freeman continued about the term being used in the same context as Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans. "You say Africa as if it's a country when it's a continent, like Europe."
Freeman said at the time that he was in "total agreement" with a sentiment once shared by Denzel Washington: "I'm very proud to be Black, but Black is not all I am."
"You can't define me that way," he said.
Decades after Harvard historian Carter G. Woodson and minister Jesse E. Moorland started celebrating the many significant achievements Black Americans have made to society with a week-long celebration in February, Black History Month was officially declared a national holiday by President Gerald Ford in 1976.
February was chosen because it fell on the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Black History Month is observed by several other nations as well; in October, the UK, the Netherlands, and Ireland do so.
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