Hot black oxide can be done from generic mixtures of caustic soda, sodium nitrite / nitrate, wetting agents and stabilizers or from proprietary mixes. The result of the process is an attractive but very thin and marginally corrosion-resistant, dark black iron oxide finish.
Negro History Week (1926). The precursor to Black History Month was created in 1926 in the United States, when historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History announced the second week of February to be Negro History Week..
Since then, every American president has designated February as Black History Month and endorsed a specific theme. The 2013 theme, At the Crossroads of Freedom and Equality: The Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington, marks the 150th and 50th anniversaries of two pivotal events in African-American history.