For nearly four generations of Americans, there’s a core memory: the first time their teacher announced at the beginning of February that it was time to honor Black History Month.
Lesson plans highlighted the work of Thurgood Marshall to desegregate the very classrooms they sat in. The words of Martin Luther King Jr. adorned hallways’ corkboards, serving as a reminder to build character and to respect people regardless of race. And the contributions of Mae Jemison, Lewis Latimer and George Washington Carver encouraged us to lean into our ability to wonder and shape the world around us.
A year ago, those lessons, the landmarks of those contributions and the way we tell those stories in our schools, workplaces and museums came under attack.
On the new administration’s very first day in office, it issued an executive order to strip funding from programs aimed at diversifying the federal government and the military. It hit institutions that received federal dollars, like a tidal wave, pushing them to abandon even recognizing Black leaders and contributors out of precaution of being sued.
Our schools, colleges, hospitals and workplaces began to retreat from commitments to advance our nation forward by supporting marginalized communities, and in some cases, any mention of Black history at all.
Museums like the Smithsonian were quickly targeted and monitored for promoting “woke ideologies” that may make white Americans “feel bad” about the sins of this nation’s past, like slavery, redlining and Jim Crow.
After 15 years, a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. was removed from the White House.
And in the last month, the administration removed a memorial honoring people enslaved by George Washington in Philadelphia.
The most sinister part of this effort to erase Black history is the posturing. Announcing a list of Black iconic figures who will be featured in the proposed National Garden of American Heroes will dismantle the work they did to advance voting rights for all Americans. Honoring Muhammad Ali while waging unjust and unconstitutional wars in foreign lands is hypocrisy. Recognizing Coretta Scott King while removing mentions of her father in White House is disgusting. And lauding the work of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman while sending armed, masked agents into our cities and homes without warrants to terrorize and kidnap Black immigrants is criminal.
Recognizing Black History Month has been about more than slapping a kente cloth label on a packaged good or passive social post with a still shot of the March on Washington. It’s an opportunity for humanity to reflect on what can be accomplished in the face of state-sanctioned oppression. It’s a reminder of what’s at stake in this nation if we disregard hatred and extremism. And it’s a call to action to defend our democracy, defeat poverty and demand diversity everywhere in this country.
The National Urban League is no stranger to this fight.
We supported A. Philip Randolph’s 1941 March on Washington Movement to combat discrimination against Blacks during World War II, and advocated for the integration of labor unions under the leadership of Lester Granger.
In the 1950s, we lobbied President Dwight D. Eisenhower to urge the enforcement of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. We participated in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights with Dr. King, other civil rights organizations and labor unions to discuss the progress of a new civil rights bill on Capitol Hill.
And we hosted meetings with the planners of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at our headquarters in New York.
As we celebrate 50 years of Black History Month being recognized by federal law, we are reminded of how quickly the tide can turn against us and how we must double down in our fight to preserve and advance our progress.
Sixty years after the March on Washington, we stand in solidarity with our peers in civil rights, fighting back against the assault on diversity, anti-democratic plans to nationalize our elections and guard ballot boxes with armed, untrained, violent agents, and policies that threaten to impoverish millions, leaving them uninsured, hungry and facing homelessness.
This Black History Month is a reminder that the National Urban League is fighting for you.
Morial is president/CEO of the National Urban League.
