As we prepare to celebrate Black History Month, I can’t remember ever feeling more pessimistic about race relations than I do right now. Donald Trump is back in office, and on day one, he banned all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government. He rescinded an executive order signed by former President Biden focused on promoting racial equity. And earlier this week, he signed his own executive order to cut federal funding for schools that teach about so-called “woke” concepts like structural racism and unconscious bias. Since re-taking office, President Trump has wielded his pen like a sledgehammer to destroy the diversity that makes our nation great. And while he might try to take everything from our community over these next four years, he can’t take our history.
Speaking of history, it feels like Trump and the Republicans want to take us back to an earlier time. You know, back when people who look like them didn’t have to see people who look like us at work, at school, at the ballot box, or at the water fountain? Although it likely would have been a MAGA wet dream, the Jim Crow era was a dark and dangerous time for our people. Violent mobs brutalized Black bodies, to the tune of 3,446 lynchings throughout the country. Meanwhile, Southerners began advancing lies about the true nature of slavery – and about the supposedly “lost cause” of the Civil War. Complete with newly-constructed Confederate statues, Southern leaders succeeded in rewriting their history.
During this time, a brilliant scholar named Carter Woodson began arming Black folks with a powerful tool for resistance: our history. After earning his Ph.D. from Harvard, Woodson helped found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915 and the Journal of Negro History the following year. Driven to help “the world see the Negro as a participant rather than as a lay figure in history,” Woodson viewed his work as giving Black folks a reason to celebrate – and forcing everyone else to acknowledge – our greatness. As racial violence throughout the country intensified, he recognized that “if a race has no history, it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.” For that reason, Woodson established the second week in February as Negro History Week in 1926. It breathed new life into Black America almost immediately, fueling the era of the New Negro and eventually the Civil Rights Movement. Fifty years later, Negro History Week became Black History Month.
In the nearly one hundred years since we began to formally celebrate our history, we have continued to make so much more of it. Bessie Coleman soared. Jackie Robinson stole home. Dr. King dreamed. John Lewis got in good trouble. Thurgood Marshall toppled “separate but equal.” Shirley Chisholm was unbought and unbossed. Mae Jemison reached for the stars and grabbed them. Toni Morrison gifted us Beloved. Barack Obama turned the White House Black. Bob Johnson made a billion. Kamala Harris became the first but not the last. Black people are truly amazing. It’s just as Carter Woodson predicted: we have used our “beautiful history…to inspire us to greater achievements.”
That’s why Trump and the Republicans want to keep our history from us. They know it will only propel us to further greatness. Right now, we could use some Black history to power us through these trying times. Trump might be plotting to take us back in history, but we can’t let him take our history. We must continue to learn it. We must continue to celebrate it. Thanks to Carter Woodson, we have an opportunity to do that all February long. This Black History Month – and indeed, every month – let’s make sure we don’t waste it.
Gevin Reynolds is a communications strategist and former speechwriter to Vice President Kamala Harris. Follow him on X @GevinReynolds.