We celebrate the same heroes every Black History Month: a chosen few heroes are put on a pedestal, celebrated by both white and black America. 
Not to take anything away from courageous freedom fighters like Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman to name a few. 
But it is time for Black History Month to evolve, expand and break out of the chains of the repetitive black history stories that we are taught year after year. 
After all, Black history did not start in America and it did not start with the enslavement of Africans. 
It has a long narrative that spans thousands of years and the African American masses must be made aware of this narrative in order to understand their full potential as well as their rightful place in history. 
Africans were robbed of their native tongues, traditions, spirituality and basic essence of their way of thriving on this planet as one with nature. 
We need a re-emergence of African tradition, spirituality and holistic healing. 
This means getting back to our roots and studying powerful and advanced African societies that existed over 10,000 years ago, such as the Bantu, Dogons, Congo Nation, Nubians, Cushites, Egyptians and Timbuktu. 
Black history is a rich history that has been destroyed, wiped out, white-washed or just simply ignored under the banner of white supremacy. 
It is up to the African Diaspora to use celebratory months like February to dig deep and rediscover their roots in the sciences, astrology, math, spirituality systems, dietary systems, and creation stories. 
 It is time to reject the narrative of white supremacy and create our own narrative, one that will be conducive to the upliftment of the entire African Diaspora and change the current paradigm to which we are currently subjected.

Jamana Lenoir is a staff writer at the Laney Tower. E-mail him at amgapparel2012(at)gmail.com.