Celebrating Black History Month
Black history is vital as we work to build a world where Black sons are free to photograph sunsets, rather than being beaten to death on dark corners as they cry out for their mothers (#TyreNichols), where Black father are praised for teaching new generations of Black scholars, not tased to death in the middle of busy intersections (#KeenanAnderson). As we embrace and honor the Black freedom fighters, struggles and lessons we learned from the past, we commit ourselves to the “fierce urgency of now,” and imagine and build towards radically free Black futures.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots is doing this revolutionary intellectual work, in part, by continuing our #BlackhistoryMatters campaign, originally forged in partnership with Scholars 4 Black Lives. This campaign is a part of a broader political education effort that brings together campus and community scholars to create and share resources that deepen our collective understanding of Black movements, movement workers, and movement events within the long political history of the African Diaspora.
Dr. Carter G. Woodson first established Negro History Week in 1926 from existing celebrations of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays by Black communities on February 14th and February 12th. However, it did not expand into “Black History Month” until 1969, when the Black Student Union at Kent State University organized a month-long commemoration. While it took the U.S. government until 1976 to officially recognize it, Black History Month symbolizes Black autonomy and a claim to self-determination.
Black Lives Matter is but one contemporary marker in the long struggle for Black Freedom. Our communities of memory—those revolutionary thinkers, organizers, cultural workers, and the everyday people who struggled before us—continue to serve as an inspiration and a moral compass from which we mobilize.
The 2023 #BlackHistoryMatters campaign aims to develop our political understanding of Black historical figures, events, and movements within the Black freedom tradition. This year, Dr. Anthony Ratcliff, Professor of Pan-African Studies at Cal State LA, will coordinate the effort. As with last year’s campaign, daily installments, captioned by movement-aligned Black scholars, will be posted to our Instagram page @blmgrassroots and tagged with #BlackHistoryMatters. We hope you will like, comment, and share widely as these brief tellings of Black history inspire us to continue with renewed vigor and vision.
In Solidarity,
Dr. Melina Abdullah
Dr. Anthony Ratcliff
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