As you know, February is Black History Month. For me, the most interesting way to explore history is to learn about people - both famous and not-so-famous. You can discover a lot about Black history by learning how individuals lived and how they overcame daily obstacles to accomplish great things.

Whether you're searching for material for a homework assignment or to satisfy your own curiosity, you will find lots of information about notable people on the Web. There are pictures and profiles of African-American and African-Canadian athletes, scientists and inventors, entertainers, professionals, religious leaders, and politicians. You will surely be impressed with the significant contributions these people have made in North American history.

For the most part, Web sites provide only brief biographies, usually a paragraph or two, and sometimes pictures too. This information provides a good overview of people's accomplishments.

African-American Biographies

By far, the most comprehensive source for profiles of notable African Americans is the Encyclopaedia Britannica Guide to Black History. To find the biographies on this site, click on "Articles A-Z", then on "Switch to Biographies". You will see a lengthy alphabetical list of both historical and contemporary figures. The biographies themselves are brief, but they also include pictures. The "A-Z" section features a similar list of events and institutions.

To learn about Black history in America, visit the "Eras in Black History" area which surveys five centuries of African-American history from the beginning of slavery to the present day. Each era is subdivided by topic, providing descriptions and documents from historic events. It also includes links back to the biographies in the "A-Z" section.

Encyclopaedia Britannica is considered an academic source suitable for high school students and up, so this site may be too advanced for younger children. The biographies though, are written relatively simply and concisely, and are more accessible than the rest of the site. This Britannica Guide was last updated in 1999.

Besides the Encyclopaedia Britannica Guide to Black History, there are lots of sites with smaller collections of biographies. Heart and Soul: A Celebration of African-American Music is an neat site from World Book Encyclopedia. It has information about styles of music and the roles African Americans played in developing and popularizing these styles. Integrated in this overview, are biographies of famous African-American musicians and singers in spirituals, blues, jazz, rock, rap and classical music. This site is designed for kids and has lots of pictures, clips of each music style, and links to related Web sites.

Another fun and interesting kids' site that provides biographies is the Fact Monster Black History Month Spotlight. Part way down the screen, on the right-hand side, you'll see an index of "Notable Biographies". They are listed both alphabetically and by topic. There are lots of biographies to choose from but they are very brief. This site also has some fun features like puzzles, quizzes, and special articles. Being a hockey fan, I was particularly interested in the article "Icing the Stereotypes: Black Hockey Players". I remember watching goaltender Grant Fuhr when he played with Wayne Gretzky on the Edmonton Oilers in the 1980s. At the time, I wondered why there were so few Black hockey players like him in the National Hockey League. This article helps answer my long-time question.

Still looking for more biographies? Yahooligans is a great place to find many links to African-American Biographies. You'll find biography collections, as well as sites with information about individual athletes, politicians, entertainers, authors, and so on. You will also find lots of sites about Black History Month and African-American history in general.

African-Canadian Profiles

When it comes to Black history in Canada, there are really a pitifully small number of Web sites. After a lot of searching, I did manage to find a few sites with biographical information on African Canadians. Most of them deal with the history and people of specific provinces, and strangely enough few have been updated recently.

Ontario Black History Online is a searchable and browsable database of oral history, audio and video clips, settlements, and biographies. In the "People" section, you'll find biographies of historical and contemporary African-Canadians. The profiles are brief, and unfortunately a few entries have only newspaper article citations indicating where information can be found. Another source for biographies of prominent African-Canadians in Ontario is the Buxton National Historical Site and Museum. This community was the last stop on the Underground Railroad for people escaping slavery in the United States. This site provides a brief history of the community, as well as profiles of important local people. Click on "History" to reach the biographies.

One of the most interesting sites I found about Black history in Canada is Some Missing Pages: The Black Community in Quebec and Canada. This site sets out to fill in the history of African-Canadians which has traditionally been left out of school text books. Throughout this site, you'll find biographies, information, and transcripts of original historic documents from the time of early explorers in French Canada to the Twentieth Century. This site is from the Provincial Association of Social Studies Teachers and the Quebec Board of Black Educators. It is also available in French. For a few more biographies of notable people, visit the Black Cultural Centre's Web Gallery. A small collection of biographies is presented in chronological order, from the 17th to 19th centuries, with illustrations by present-day artists.

Although African-Canadians have a long history in Nova Scotia, there is little information about them on the Web. The Black Cultural Centre of Nova Scotia provides a few biographies of prominent people, accompanied by small photographs and interesting quotes. The Black Historical and Cultural Society of British Columbia also has a handful of biographies of African Canadians in British Columbia's history from the mid-Nineteenth Century gold rush to today.

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Berit's Browse is where Berit highlights her favorite sites on various themes and discusses her opinions and observations about kids' sites and kids on the Internet. The column is also a great place for to cover topics that you are interested in. Let her know what you'd like to read about!