• 45 ideas

Black History Month Drawing Ideas

Deal one poster or card layout with its checked dates and colours, then sort by portrait layouts, timelines, lettering or symbols and places.

Black History Month Drawing Ideas

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  1. The word HISTORY with a portrait frame inside the OBlock capitals across the sheet with the O drawn as an oval frame. The portrait goes in last, once you have chosen.

Next step Practise heads and faces first

All 45 ideas

Portrait layouts 16

  • A class quilt of portrait squares, one per pupil Everyone draws one person on a 15 cm paper square, name below. Tape the squares in rows with dark strips between.
  • A classroom door title in cut-paper letters Cut each capital from a 10 cm square so they match. Black letters on gold paper, and a card below for each person.
  • A family portrait with an elder's memory lettered beside it Ask a grandparent or older neighbour for one memory. Draw them at the age they were then, with their words beside.
  • A history-maker trading card, front and back Front: portrait and name. Back: born, known for, one checked fact. Draw it at twice playing-card size, then cut it out.
  • A local-hero portrait for someone from your own town A librarian, a coach, a shop owner, a nurse. Ask first, draw from a photo they choose, and add their street behind.
  • A museum-label poster: portrait, name, dates, one sentence A large portrait above a white label. Write the one sentence last, because it is the hardest part and needs checking.
  • A name banner with two years and a dash A long scroll for the person you chose: the name large, the years small at each end. Check the spelling twice, then ink.
  • A portrait built from words about the person Pencil a head and shoulders lightly. Fill the shape with their jobs, places and dates in small capitals, then erase.
  • A portrait inside a postage-stamp border A scalloped edge, a value in one corner and the name along the base. Put a band of red, black or green behind the head.
  • A portrait-with-quote poster, face left and words right Half the sheet each, with the name and years along the base. Find the quote in a book or museum page before inking it.
  • A silhouette portrait filled with kente stripes A side-view head as one shape. Rule narrow strips inside it and fill them with blocks of gold, green, red and black.
  • A then-and-now pair: a pioneer and you in the same job Two matching frames. The pioneer on the left with their years, yourself on the right in the same coat, kit or uniform.
  • A tree with labelled roots and portrait leaves Roots carry places and years, branches carry the people your class studied. Brown trunk, green and gold leaves.
  • An inventor-and-invention pair in two frames The person on the left, the object on the right, the patent year beneath. Check the year in a museum or patent record.
  • One person's life drawn as a winding road Five signposts along the road: born, school, first big step, best-known work, legacy. Every date needs a source.
  • The word HISTORY with a portrait frame inside the O Block capitals across the sheet with the O drawn as an oval frame. The portrait goes in last, once you have chosen.

Timelines 12

  • A chart of Underground Railroad train words It borrowed railway words. Letter station for a safe house, conductor for a guide, passenger for a person escaping.
  • A fighter plane with an all-red tail The Tuskegee Airmen's 332nd Fighter Group painted its tails red, hence Red Tails. Side view, a red band on the nose.
  • A Great Migration map with arrows leaving the South About six million people moved between 1910 and 1970. Arrows north to Chicago, Detroit, New York; west to Los Angeles.
  • A lunch counter with four empty seats Greensboro, North Carolina, 1 February 1960: four students sat down. A long steel counter and four round seats.
  • A Montgomery bus boycott strip with no bus in it 5 December 1955 to 20 December 1956. Along the strip draw walking shoes, a shared car, a bicycle and a ten-cent taxi.
  • A month calendar with one fact box per school day February in the US and Canada, October in the UK and Ireland. Twenty boxes, each with a small drawing and one line.
  • A night sky with the Big Dipper over a dark treeline Most Underground Railroad escapes were at night. The Big Dipper, called the drinking gourd, points to the North Star.
  • A ribbon timeline from 1926 to this year 1926: a history week begins in the US. 1970: the first full month, at Kent State. 1976: national recognition. Then now.
  • A timeline of firsts in one field, left open for research Pick sport, science, music or law. Five flags on a line, each waiting for a name, a year and where you found them.
  • The Lincoln Memorial steps with a crowd to the Monument 28 August 1963, about 250,000 people. Dots for heads, a few placards held high and the obelisk small at the far end.
  • Nine sets of footprints up the steps of a high school Little Rock, Arkansas, September 1957: nine students. The school still teaches and is a National Historic Site now.
  • The steel arch bridge at Selma with marchers crossing Selma, Alabama. One steel arch above the deck, the Alabama River below. Marchers set out for Montgomery, 21 March 1965.

Lettering 7

  • A FREEDOM acrostic down the left edge Seven large capitals, red, black and green in turn. Beside each, write a word or a fact from your own reading.
  • A headline in gold capitals on a black ground Rule guide lines in white pencil on black paper and letter in yellow ochre. One thin red rule and one green beneath.
  • A kente-stripe border round a lettered title Kente is a Ghanaian cloth hand-woven in strips. Rule strips round the edge and fill them in gold, green, red and black.
  • A march button with two hands shaking The 1963 march sold a button showing two shaking hands, its full name and the date. Draw two circles and letter the rim.
  • A placard lettered like a 1963 march sign Signs at the March on Washington read Equal Rights and Jobs NOW. Thick capitals on plain card and nothing else.
  • BLACK HISTORY MONTH across bands of red, black and green Three equal bands, red on top, then black, then green, as on the Pan-African flag. One word per band in white or gold.
  • Sankofa lettered under the backward-looking bird An Akan word from Ghana meaning go back and get it. The bird's feet face forward while its head turns back to an egg.

Symbols and places 10

  • A djembe drum with zigzag ropes A West African goblet drum carved from one log, with a goatskin head, played by hand. Ropes zigzag down the bowl.
  • A jazz trumpet with notes rising from the bell For the Harlem Renaissance, centred in Harlem, New York, in the 1920s and 1930s. Three valves, a flared bell, gold.
  • A map of Africa filled with pattern Outline the continent, divide it with curved lines and fill each part with its own stripes, zigzags or dots.
  • A torch passed from one hand to another The 1979 theme was History: Torch for the Future. An older hand on the left, a younger one reaching, the flame in gold.
  • A work-clothes quilt in the Gee's Bend way Gee's Bend, Alabama. Quilters there call improvised designs my way quilts. Start with a square and add strips by eye.
  • An Adinkra stamp pattern in a ruled grid Adinkra are symbols of the Akan people of Ghana, printed on cloth with carved calabash stamps. Repeat one per square.
  • An iron-grille pattern like the museum's screen Its pattern comes from old iron grilles in Charleston and New Orleans. Rule a grid and repeat one curl in each cell.
  • The bronze museum on the National Mall Washington DC, opened 2016. Three stacked tiers lean outward in a bronze-coloured lattice, shaped after a Yoruba crown.
  • Joined hands in a ring, seen from above Eight hands gripping wrists in a circle. Mix skin tones from tan to deep brown, and ring them in red, black and green.
  • The Pan-African flag flying from a pole Adopted by the UNIA in New York, 13 August 1920. Red for blood shed, black for the people, green for the land of Africa.

How it works

Where the portrait sits, what the timeline marks, which colours carry the headline: these Black History Month drawing ideas are layouts for school posters and cards. No idea names a person. Portrait layouts leave that space for someone you have chosen and checked. Deal one of the 45, or tap Portrait layouts, Timelines, Lettering or Symbols and places.

Read the full guide

Portrait layouts that leave the choosing to you

Portrait layouts holds 16 ways to set out a poster about one person. A portrait-with-quote poster, face left and words right gives half the sheet to each. The list names nobody on purpose. Choosing is part of the homework, and the name, the years and the quote all need checking in a book or on a museum page before ink.

Where red, black, green and gold come from

Red, black and green are the bands of the Pan-African flag, adopted in New York in 1920: red for blood shed, black for the people, green for the land of Africa. Gold comes in with kente, the Ghanaian cloth hand-woven in strips. BLACK HISTORY MONTH across bands of red, black and green keeps the flag's order, red on top, under white or gold letters.

  • It is February in the United States and Canada, and October in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Letter the one your school keeps.
  • Symbols and places holds 22 subjects with a date or place in the hint, such as A lunch counter with four empty seats. Copy it onto the poster.
  • Rule a timeline before drawing on it. Mark the first and last years, then divide the gap evenly.

Questions and answers

When did Black History Month start?

It grew from Negro History Week, begun in 1926 by the historian Carter G. Woodson. He set it in the second week of February, which held the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Kent State University held the first full month in 1970, and national recognition came in 1976. A ribbon timeline from 1926 to this year marks all three.

Is there a theme each year?

In the United States, yes: ASALH selects one. The 2026 theme was A Century of Black History Commemorations, and 2025 was African Americans and Labor. The theme changes every year, so look up the current one on the ASALH site before a contest.

Why does no idea name a person?

A fixed list cannot check your person for you. Every name, year and quote on a school poster should come from a source you can point to. Timelines holds 13 layouts with the gaps marked: A timeline of firsts in one field, left open for research is five flags, each waiting for a name, a year and a source.

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