Black History Month coloring pages for young kids

The best Black History Month coloring pages for young kids are tied to a story: a picture book you read together, a person your child can name, or an elder in your own family. Generic sheets of famous faces get colored once and forgotten. Below is a short history of the month written for parents, free printables, five pages you can draw tonight, and picture books by Black authors and illustrators, most of them Coretta Scott King Award winners.

Why February: a two-minute history for parents

Historian Carter G. Woodson and the organization he founded announced Negro History Week in 1925, and it was first celebrated during a week in February 1926 that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, according to the Black History Month site run by the Library of Congress with the National Archives, the Smithsonian and other federal partners. The same page explains that the celebration was expanded to a month in 1976, the nation's bicentennial, and that Woodson's association, now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, continues to promote the study of Black history all year.

For a four-year-old, that becomes one sentence: "A long time ago, a historian named Carter G. Woodson wanted everyone to learn what Black Americans had done, so he started a special week, and now it is a whole month." That is plenty.

Free printables worth downloading

• A Junior Ranger booklet from home. The Frederick Douglass National Historic Site says that even if you cannot visit the site, you can still become a Junior Ranger from home: email the park for a copy of the booklet, complete at least eight activities, and mail it back. Many younger kids will need help, which makes it a family project.
• Museum activity booklets for little ones. Our guide to Black coloring books for kids links a free set of early-childhood activity booklets from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
• Your library. Ask at the children's desk what they have planned for February, and whether they keep a display of Black history picture books you can borrow from.

Five coloring pages you can draw tonight

Pages your child helped invent get colored far longer than any download.

1. A marching sign. After reading We March, draw a big rectangle on a stick and ask your child what their sign would say. Write it in, let them color it, and march around the living room.
2. A portrait from the book. Pick one person from Little Leaders or R-E-S-P-E-C-T and draw a simple head-and-shoulders outline. Give a real range of brown crayons. Our skin tone crayons guide covers which sets are worth it.
3. A collage page. Radiant Child is about an artist who saw art everywhere. Give your child a blank page, crayons, old magazines and glue, and let them make a Basquiat-style crown.
4. A family elder page. Draw a grandparent or great-grandparent and write their answer to one question underneath, like "What was school like for you?" Black history is family history too, and kids remember the person they know.
5. A "When I grow up" page. Draw your child in a frame with a blank sign: scientist, drummer, judge, astronaut. Ask them to color who they want to be.

Picture books to color alongside

The Coretta Scott King Book Awards from the American Library Association honor African American authors and illustrators, and the yearly winner pages are a reliable source of books worth owning. These skip titles we already recommend in Black coloring books for kids, Juneteenth coloring pages and Kwanzaa coloring pages.

Book	Age	What it is
We March by Shane Evans	3 to 6	Brief text and big pictures of the 1963 march in Washington, D.C., where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a historic speech.
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History by Vashti Harrison	4 to 8	Short profiles of 40 bold African American women who shaped history. Read one a night in February. Harrison also illustrated Sulwe, a 2020 CSK Illustrator Honor book.
Radiant Child by Javaka Steptoe	5 to 8	Before Jean-Michel Basquiat was famous, he was a little boy who saw art everywhere. The 2017 CSK Illustrator Award winner.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Frank Morrison	5 to 8	Aretha Franklin, the daughter of a pastor and a gospel singer, who started singing in her father's Detroit church. The 2021 CSK Illustrator Award winner. Play the song while they color.
Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Kadir Nelson	6 and up	Tubman's first escape north to freedom. The 2007 CSK Illustrator Award winner. Read it first yourself.
The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson	6 and up	An ode to Black American triumph and tribulation. The 2020 CSK Illustrator Award winner. Powerful, and best with an adult nearby.

Keep it joyful for the youngest kids

For ages 3 to 5, aim for pride and curiosity, not a full history lesson. Pick one book, one page and one conversation a week. Save the hardest parts of the story, like slavery and violence, for when your child asks or is a little older, and answer their questions plainly when they come. Coloring is a good moment for those questions because hands are busy and nobody is staring at anyone.

We are making a few African American coloring storybooks of our own, including a family reunion story, an HBCU homecoming with a little drum major, a hair day story and a Juneteenth story. They are written and reviewed, and none are on sale yet. Today, Colorkin can turn your own family photos into a coloring storybook, drafted with AI illustration tools and finished by a person.

More holiday and heritage guides are in our family and heritage hub.

Questions parents ask