MAIN Holidays & Observances Black History Month 2025
Working on the Hoover Dam, 1933. |
The 2025 Black History Month theme is "African Americans and Labor", touching on the invaluable contributions of African Americans in the workforce.
Brought to colonial America on slave ships in the 1600's, African Americans slaves became a keystone of labor in the newly-formed United States.
Besides working as the bedrock of the agricultural south, African-American slaves (both men and women) were also responsible for building the entire southern rail system, a gift to the whole of the US economy.
African American labor following the Civil War
Later fighting for their freedom during the Civil War, African Americans went on to became farm laborers, landowners, salaried workers, and business owners. Having already built the railroads, many blacks also found work as the iconic Pullman railroad porter at the turn of the century -- job later credited with the development of the black middle class in America.
A prominent figure in the Pullman Porter story was labor organizer A. Philip Randolph, who formed a workers union aimed at improving the lives of black railroad porters and others employed by the Pullman railroad. It became the first movement for racial and economic justice, a solid foundation for the one that Martin Luther King Jr. later built his campaign upon in the 1960s. (2025 also marks the 100th anniversary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters founded in 1925.)
Other unions formed at the time included coal miners, dock workers, and more notably Chicago meatpackers that helped further economic stability and workplace empowerment for black workers.
Although great strides had being made compared to slavery days, black Americans were still subject to age-old discrimination by whites when it came to economic advancement. This was especially evident when black business success overshadowed the surrounding population (also see: The Black Wall Street Massacre).
Up from the Depression
By the Great Depression, work was scarce for all Americans, as black unemployment rates in the South reached double or even triple that of whites. In response, the federal government created over 400,000 jobs for African-Americans as part of the WPA program (with projects such as the Hoover Dam, pictured above) designed to get all Americans back to work.
Southern blacks, meanwhile, -- as part of The Great Migration that began in the 1920s -- surged in numbers as they headed to the industrial north looking for work.
Leader Martin Luther King, Jr., ensured that the historic March on Washington
on August 28, 1963
was also a march for fair wages and economic justice.
During the Second World War, "separate but equal" segregated black military units served with distinction with many more African Americans helping in the war effort as nurses, engineers and truck drivers. Although President Harry S. Truman finally ordered all US military to desegregate by 1948, the ongoing fight for equal rights in the workplace had only just begun.
Following the war, racism resumed in force when a powerful young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. appeared on the scene. From his pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, he began championing labor unions, strikes and boycotts in an effort to gain equal treatment in a country that had emerged as one of the richest and most powerful during the post-war years.
Proclaiming "civil rights are workers' rights", King was a national figure by 1964 when Congress passed The Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination nationwide on the basis of religion and race, especially when it came to job hiring, promoting, and firing.
Under the new law, segregation also ended in the nation's schools -- reflecting King's other key issue -- that education was a powerful tool for social change and economic justice.
Today, the march for equality goes on, with powerful forces acting to reverse the King legacy in state legislatures to corporate boardrooms.
The theme, “African Americans and Labor,” is meant to put the spotlight back on the history of black labor struggles, and the continuing fight for a living wage and better job opportunities for all.
Resources for Black History Month 2025
Black Workers Remember - American Prospect
The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States
Black History Month 2024 rewind
"African Americans and the Arts", the theme
for
Black History Month 2024. |
The 2024 theme for Black History Month is "African Americans and the Arts", celebrating a dynamic culture that has spread worldwide in the arts, music, literature and film .
Beginning with "Negro spirituals" and blues music that brought solace to a life of enslavement in the South, other later popular forms of African-American music emerged in urban jazz in New Orleans and Chicago.
Meanwhile, the great migration north offered new opportunities for expression and creativity in such movements as the Harlem Renaissance in New York City that also had black music and entertainment at its center.
The Harlem Renaissance
One of the most important creative periods in black American history, the Harlem Renaissance manifested in mixed-race audiences packing the house to see such musicians as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Bessie Smith performing in such legendary venues as the Cotton Club and the Savoy Ballroom.
In the arts, Aaron Douglas, known today as “the father of Black American art”, brought traditional African techniques into his large scale paintings and murals while legendary sculptor Augusta Savage introduced stunning portraits of black faces and figures to the mainstream art scene.
The Harlem Renaissance also brought a new creative energy for African American literature, with a major influence in the writings of author and poet Langston Hughes. His writing encompassed poems, plays, essays, and short stories celebrating African American culture, or taking a bleak look at segregation and racial injustice.
Aspects of Negro Life from Slavery to the Reconstruction by Aaron Douglas and Gamin by sculptor
Augusta Savage were major examples of African-American art that arose from the Harlem Renaissance.
Another emerging author during the Harlem Renaissance was Zora Neale Hurston, who was unafraid of controversy with her great American novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" -- which touched upon the struggles of black people in America, and the separation between light-skinned and dark-skinned African Americans.
From the Harlem Renaissance also sprang intellectuals such as W.E.B Du Bois and Alain Locke who helped usher in the early beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1940s.
Mid-20th century
By mid-century, popular musical entertainment such as doo wop, soul, R&B and even rock & roll were distinctly developed by the African American community before they hit the American mainstream.
Beginning in the 1970's, the same city streets that sparked the Harlem Renaissance were responsible for the hip-hop phenomenon that continues to influence generations of rap artists, dancers and fashion designers worldwide.
During this same period, black women writers and poets rose to prominence to become household names including "Beloved" author Toni Morrison, "The Color Purple" author Alice Walker, and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" author Maya Angelou.
Into the 21st Century
The most recent form of African-American self-expression -- relying on synthesized sounds and sci-fi influences -- is reflected in the Afrofuturist movement most popularly seen in the music of Sun Ra and Janelle Monáe and in such films such as "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever".
All told, it's impossible to overstate the influence of the African-American community on modern-day arts and culture.
While the struggle for freedom and justice endures at home for many African Americans, the rest of the world looks on at a rich culture that is viewed as uniquely and originally American.
Resources for Black History Month 2024
Google Arts & Culture: Black History & Culture
African Americans in the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities Teacher's Guide : African American History and Culture in the United States
All about Black History Month
Black History Month first originated as part of an initiative by writer and educator Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who launched Negro History Week in 1926. Woodson proclaimed that Negro History Week should always occur in the second week of February — between the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
Since 1976, every American president has proclaimed February as Black History Month. Today, other countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom also devote an entire month to celebrating black history.
The Web is a great place to find out more about that history — in poetry, literature, the arts, sciences, sports and entertainment — making Black History Month a time of fun, celebration, and learning.
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