Morgan Freeman is again pushing back against Black History Month, criticizing its length and stating that Black history is intertwined with American history.
“I detest it, the mere idea of it,” Freeman told Variety in a recent interview about “The Gray House,” a historical drama series about the work of Union spies during the Civil War. “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, alongside Kevin Costner and others, serves as executive producer of “The Gray House.”
In an interview last year discussing his decades-long career, Freeman said that the month — as well as the term “African American” — was an “insult.” Black History Month was established in 1976, building on the legacy of Carter G. Woodson, a scholar known as the “father of Black history.”
Woodson, who created Negro History Week, chose February to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, according to the Assn. for the Study of African American History.
It’s a concept that the “Shawshank Redemption” and “Driving Miss Daisy” actor rejects.
“My history is American history,” Freeman said. He added that American history is “the one thing in this world I am interested in, beyond making money, having a good time and getting enough sleep.”
He emphasized a need to be well-versed in history, because “if you don’t know your past, if you don’t remember it, you are bound to repeat it.”
“The Gray House” premiered at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival on Friday.