As Black History Month comes to an end, many students don’t want people to lose their focus and interest in black history.

Chico Herbison, instructor for African and African-American Studies said he believed more in a polyculturalism approach to the history month than a multicultural view.

“Polyculturalism emphasizes our multiple or mixed lineages. The truest definition of an American is someone who is the beneficiary of European American culture, African-American culture, of women history, of Chicano Music,” he said. “It looks at the intersection of all of these cultures other than focusing on one culture then going to the next.”

Herbison said that separating cultures into different months could be dangerous. If you begin to separate the historical connection that cultures share it creates what he calls “Cafeteria Multiculturalism.”

“You go through the ethnic cafeteria line and say ‘I’ll take a side order of African-American culture and a couple scoops of Hispanic culture,’ but never really integrating all of them,” he said. “Seldom do people look at the interconnected history of all these months.”

He thinks that Black History Month is only a start and hopes that one day it won’t be needed.

A focus on the connections between cultures needs to be taught to students at a young age, but Herbison knows that grade schools face more restrictions in curriculum than he does, he said.

Tierra Scott, Chicago senior who is taking a course in the department of African and African-American Studies with Herbison, wrote an editorial in Friday’s University Daily Kansan talking about what she thinks are the biggest problems with Black History Month. In the editorial she listed three problems: There is only a core group of famous Africacn-American that get focused on, people cannot get a real feeling for African-American history in 10-second history lesson on TV and February is the shortest month of the year.

Mitchell Van Doren, Kingston, Jamaica, junior is also in Herbison's class. She was surprised to hear that some of her classmates didn't like Black History Month. She said that she feels differently.

"I never thought that people would actually hate it. I could see white people not liking it, but not black people," she said. 'I love it and I don't know that much about African-American culture."

Melva Landrum, Minneapolis, Minn., senior, said that Black History Month was a good way to bring awareness to African Americans. She said that you can never learn enough about people different from yourself.

Landrum is the president of Zeta Phi Beta sorority, which helped sponsor events for African Heritage Month on campus.

Black History Month was first created by Carter Woodson in 1926. It was known then as "Nego History Week." February is a month with important mile-stones in African-American history such as the ratification of the 15th Amendment, which allowed black men to vote. It is also the month the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded and when Malcolm X was killed.