Black history is a witness to who we were, and who we have been—and is also a catalyst for how we can be.
Black history is a producer of legacy, place, and belonging. It signifies to Black youth the importance and significance of their lives, as engineers, artists, activists, community members, and plainly as people. In American history classrooms ripe with whiteness, Black history signifies the belonging and rightful assertion of Black life in education and society.
In this new year of 2025, Black history is not guaranteed to be covered in any great depth in many public K-12 history classes in the United States of America. In fact, only 12 states require the teaching of Black History in American public schools, and, within those 12, several states also have enacted legislation to alter and oppose the teaching of Black history and Critical Race Theory (a large proponent of Black history) in American public schools. Importantly, states that have chosen to alter the teaching of Black history have done so without seeking the expertise or guidance of historians of Black life and culture, Black community leaders, or Black students, all of whom are directly affected by the legislative decisions.
In February, a month designated to celebrate our understanding and year-long learning of Black life and history, so often does the “celebration” become a bare minimum declaration of the historical existence of Black people. In 1916, The Journal of African American History was founded by Carter G. Woodson, the “Grandfather of Black History.” Woodson’s commitment to the teaching and learning of Black history led him to create the first-ever “Negro” History Week in February of 1926. Woodson hoped to produce a celebration and showcase of year-round learning of Black history in segregated Black schools and to insist that there was a great absence of Black history in year-round history curricula in white schools in America. Importantly, after the passage of Brown V. Board of Education in 1954, previous white-only public schools rejected the curriculum standards of previous Black public schools, including those that upheld year-long learning of Black history. I ask what our society or the world would be like if history were a tool in our toolbox rather than a ripped page from the books meticulously written with laughter, joy, pain, anger, and the incredible aliveness of Black people. Our modern understanding and celebration of Black History Month can be directly cited to the great work of Carter G. Woodson in the early and mid-1900s, and so can our fight for Black history to be taught year-round in American history classrooms.
Black history defines Black life in the past, yes, but without contradiction, it protects and promotes Black life in our present. As the stewards of Black history, of our families’ history, our neighbors’ history, and our history, we must protect and promote Black history for those who can no longer and for ourselves. We must promote Black history for the Black students who did not have the opportunity we have had to learn Black history, and we must promote Black history for the Black students who know more than we do, so that Black history may continue to thrive beyond us.
The trend of resistance against the teaching of Black history will continue and likely will be exacerbated by the incoming federal administration. In 2025, Black history is in a constant perennial bloom, it is pushed down every winter by those who believe telling the truths of Black life and Black people to be “indoctrination,” but without hesitation, it will bloom again next season without fail. This seed, this plant, this forest is centuries old, and it is now our turn to protect it until the spring.
