As we put together to have a good time Black Historical past Month, I can’t bear in mind ever feeling extra pessimistic about race relations than I do proper now. Donald Trump is again in workplace, and on day one, he banned all range, fairness, and inclusion initiatives throughout the federal authorities. He rescinded an govt order signed by former President Biden targeted on selling racial fairness. And earlier this week, he signed his personal govt order to minimize federal funding for faculties that train about so-called “woke” ideas like structural racism and unconscious bias. Since re-taking workplace, President Trump has wielded his pen like a sledgehammer to destroy the range that makes our nation nice. And whereas he may attempt to take all the pieces from our neighborhood over these subsequent 4 years, he can’t take our historical past.
Talking of historical past, it appears like Trump and the Republicans need to take us again to an earlier time. You realize, again when individuals who appear like them didn’t must see individuals who appear like us at work, at college, on the poll field, or on the water fountain? Though it seemingly would have been a MAGA moist dream, the Jim Crow period was a darkish and harmful time for our folks. Violent mobs brutalized Black our bodies, to the tune of 3,446 lynchings all through the nation. In the meantime, Southerners started advancing lies concerning the true nature of slavery – and concerning the supposedly “misplaced trigger” of the Civil Battle. Full with newly-constructed Accomplice statues, Southern leaders succeeded in rewriting their historical past.
Throughout this time, an excellent scholar named Carter Woodson started arming Black people with a strong software for resistance: our historical past. After incomes his Ph.D. from Harvard, Woodson helped discovered the Affiliation for the Examine of Negro Life and Historical past in 1915 and the Journal of Negro Historical past the next yr. Pushed to assist “the world see the Negro as a participant relatively than as a lay determine in historical past,” Woodson considered his work as giving Black people a cause to have a good time – and forcing everybody else to acknowledge – our greatness. As racial violence all through the nation intensified, he acknowledged that “if a race has no historical past, it has no worthwhile custom, it turns into a negligible issue within the considered the world, and it stands at risk of being exterminated.” For that cause, Woodson established the second week in February as Negro Historical past Week in 1926. It breathed new life into Black America nearly instantly, fueling the period of the New Negro and finally the Civil Rights Motion. Fifty years later, Negro Historical past Week turned Black Historical past Month.
Within the practically 100 years since we started to formally have a good time our historical past, we’ve continued to make a lot extra of it. Bessie Coleman soared. Jackie Robinson stole residence. Dr. King dreamed. John Lewis received in good bother. Thurgood Marshall toppled “separate however equal.” Shirley Chisholm was unbought and unbossed. Mae Jemison reached for the celebs and grabbed them. Toni Morrison gifted us Beloved. Barack Obama turned the White Home Black. Bob Johnson made a billion. Kamala Harris turned the primary however not the final. Black individuals are actually superb. It’s simply as Carter Woodson predicted: we’ve used our “lovely historical past…to encourage us to higher achievements.”
That’s why Trump and the Republicans need to maintain our historical past from us. They know it should solely propel us to additional greatness. Proper now, we might use some Black historical past to energy us via these making an attempt instances. Trump is likely to be plotting to take us again in historical past, however we will’t let him take our historical past. We should proceed to be taught it. We should proceed to have a good time it. Due to Carter Woodson, we’ve a chance to try this all February lengthy. This Black Historical past Month – and certainly, each month – let’s be sure we don’t waste it.
Gevin Reynolds is a communications strategist and former speechwriter to Vice President Kamala Harris. Comply with him on X @GevinReynolds.