Black History Month is a reflection of the current political climate, so in what ways can we modernize it?
We are in Black History Month in the UK, and it appears it’s time for a reassessment. As time has passed, an celebration that began as a commemorative event of the past, cultural identity and bonds between Black populations worldwide, has adopted a business-like atmosphere, broadening to incorporate gatherings where African descendants are paid to address white audiences about “unconscious bias” and supportive partnership. The 2020s Black Lives Matter protests generated a rise in the enterprise of demonstrating racial awareness. However, that period has concluded. The surge has reached its height, resulting in a somewhat empty inheritance of what increasing understanding is for.
The Background of Black History Month
Originally observed in the United States and Canada, Black History Month was created in 1962 as a week dedicated to Negro history by African American historian Carter G. Woodson with a week of celebration and reflection in the middle of February. Black History Month evolved from this initiative and was publicly established in 1970. Now it is celebrated not only in the United States and Canada in February, but also in autumn in the United Kingdom, Deutschland, Éire and the Holland.
The observance has transformed since that time, placing less emphasis on the accounts of the slave trade across the Atlantic and fights for racial justice, and greater focus on influential individuals of color in government, the arts, and social movements, and widely honoring the contribution Black people have made to shape the country. It is in schools where Black History Month is most regularly observed, with discussions and heritage festivities. But the manner the observance is commemorated is a reflection of the contemporary political context. How it progresses is a good lesson in how assimilation leads to dismantling: the transformation of Black History Month has stymied the objective of it, which is to confront embedded and established prejudice.
A Troubling Time
Hardly anything shows how crucial it is to reevaluate Black History Month more than the specific period in which it falls this year. In the United Kingdom, a reemerging right-wing in the shape of the Reform party is top in opinion ratings. In the summer we witnessed the biggest extreme right demonstration in the history of Britain. Kemi Badenoch, the African descendant in charge of the Tory party, is a strong critic of Black Lives Matter, and we are in a position where a legislator gains confidence to say that a lack of white people in certain urban areas is a cause for alarm. Simultaneously, ultra-nationalist movements are surging in the European continent as a complete entity.
In the US, a massive attack against inclusion programs and preferential policies has been carried, often successfully, to the supreme judicial bodies of the state. A effort to erase the history of people of color and experience from the archives is under way. One of Donald Trump's early administrative commands targeted the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the renowned cultural organization, accusing them of a “concerted and widespread effort to change the national past” by portraying America “as inherently racist”.
In this context, the celebration illustrates how minimally it can be effective if it is restricted to either dutiful corporate observances, or stripped of political content commemorations of former accomplishments, rather than addressing the conditions of the present. It also reveals how its short period means that it is separated from the more extensive continuous action that is required. A university professor, a prof at University of Greenwich, expressed it perfectly when she expressed apprehension about the short-term symbolic gestures of the observance. “The difficulty with taking a tokenistic approach”, she commented, “is that it typically leads to that Black History Month evolves into a fleeting performance rather than a agent of progress.”
Rethinking, But Not Jettisoning
Determining how to adjust, modify and expand initiatives for equal rights and acknowledgment in such periods of dismay and anxiety is a challenging endeavor. There is a inclination to just do away with observances such as Black History Month completely, assuming they are inadequate for current needs, or are relics of an era that has failed to deliver.
But despite everything, Black History Month, and in fact the whole broad system and legacy of activism for racial justice – grassroots Black Lives Matter organisations, inclusion and equity efforts, and yes, even those talks to businesses – represent an infrastructure that a significant effort has been invested in. It is there not merely to decline as the situation evolves (and in fact, regresses), but to be a dynamic entity.
So what would a new dynamic Black History Month look like? Firstly, it would be not just one concentrated month: something that is distributed through the year (as various establishments are already beginning to do), sections of its curriculum (particularly around prominent figures of color) integrated into educational programs. It would also be a period that does not avoid politics, and provides room for citizens, particularly the younger generation, to express their concerns and stories. What value has mere awareness of the history when it fails to address the contemporary truth of far-right rallies in the street? Establishments who observe it should not be comforted with the neutral terminology of hidden discrimination and alertness to minor insults, but challenged by the risks that face all if opposition to discrimination is not treated with importance. To summarize, Black History Month should be made up-to-date, pressing, and adaptive. Maybe an entire name rebrand is necessary – Contemporary Black History Month.
