February 4, 2025
President Gerald Ford formally acknowledged Black Historical past Month in 1976.
The theme for Black Historical past Month 2025 is African People and Labor.
President Gerald Ford formally acknowledged Black Historical past Month in 1976 when he known as for the general public to “seize the chance to honor the too-often uncared for accomplishments of Black People in each space of endeavor all through our historical past.”
Based on Scripps Information, there was a theme for Black Historical past Month since its origins when historian Carter G. Woodson began “Negro Historical past Week” in 1926.
Immediately, the Affiliation for the Examine of African American Life and Historical past (ASALH) develops the themes.
“Black folks’s work has been transformational all through the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora,” in accordance with ASALH. “The 2025 Black Historical past Month theme, ‘African People and Labor,’ units out to spotlight and rejoice the potent affect of this work.”
Based on ASALH, work is central to a lot of Black historical past and tradition, from conventional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Nation colonies to debates amongst Black educators on the significance of vocational coaching, entrepreneurship in Black communities.
“Like faith, social justice actions, and schooling, learning African People’ labor and labor struggles are vital organizing foci for brand new interpretations and reinterpretations of the Black previous, current, and future,” says ASALH. “Such new concerns and reconsiderations are much more important because the historic forces of racial oppression collect new and renewed energy within the twenty first century.”
Black Historical past Month 2025 comes at a time when variety, fairness, and inclusion applications, particularly within the workforce, come below assault from the brand new administration. In a few of his first priorities in his second time period, President Donald Trump has signed numerous government orders to remove DEI applications from non-public corporations with contracts with the federal authorities. Consequently, corporations similar to Goal, Walmart, and Lowe’s have rolled again their DEI initiatives.
In 2024, the theme was African People and the Arts. In 2023, the theme was Black Resistance.
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