<\/p>\n
For academics, historians and activists, the past year has been tumultuous in advocating the teaching of Black history in the United States.<\/p>\n
Despite last year proclaiming February as National Black History Month, President Donald Trump started his second term by claiming some African American history lessons are meant to indoctrinate people into hating the country. The administration has dismantled Black history at national parks, most recently removing an exhibit on slavery in Philadelphia<\/a> last month. Black history advocates see these acts and their chilling effect as scary and unprecedented.<\/p>\n \u201cStates and cities are nervous about retribution from the White House,” said DeRay Mckesson, a longtime activist and executive director of Campaign Zero, an organization focused on police reform. “So even the good people are just quieter now.\u201d<\/p>\n In the 100th year since the nation\u2019s earliest observances of Black History Month \u2014 which began when scholar Carter G. Woodson pioneered the first Negro History Week<\/a> \u2014 celebrations will go on. The current political climate has energized civil rights organizations, artists and academics to engage young people on a full telling of America\u2019s story. There are hundreds of lectures, teach-ins and even new books \u2014 from nonfiction to a graphic novel \u2014 to mark the milestone.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is why we are working with more than 150 teachers around the country on a Black History Month curriculum to just ensure that young people continue to learn about Black history in a way that is intentional and thoughtful,\u201d Mckesson said about a campaign his organization has launched with the Afro Charities organization and leading Black scholars to expand access to educational materials.<\/p>\n New graphic novel highlights history of Juneteenth<\/p>\n About three years ago, Ang\u00e9lique Roch\u00e9, a journalist and adjunct professor at Xavier University of Louisiana, accepted a \u201conce-in-a-lifetime\u201d invitation to be the writer for a graphic novel retelling of the story of Opal Lee, \u201cgrandmother of Juneteenth.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Lee, who will also turn 100 this year, is largely credited for getting federal recognition of the June 19 holiday<\/a> commemorating the day when enslaved people in Texas learned they were emancipated. Under Trump, however, Juneteenth is no longer a free-admission day<\/a> at national parks.<\/p>\n Juneteenth helped usher in the first generation of Black Americans who, like Woodson, was born free. \u201cFirst Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth,” the graphic novel, comes out Tuesday. It is the culmination of Roch\u00e9’s assiduous archival research, phone chats and visits to Texas to see Lee and her granddaughter, Dione Sims.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is nothing \u2018indoctrinating\u2019 about facts that are based on primary sources that are highly researched,\u201d said Roch\u00e9, who hopes the book makes it into libraries and classrooms. \u201cAt the end of the day, what the story should actually tell people is that we\u2019re far more alike than we are different.\u201d<\/p>\n While Lee is the main character, Roch\u00e9 used the novel as a chance to put attention on lesser known historical figures like William \u201cGooseneck Bill\u201d McDonald, Texas\u2019 first Black millionaire, and Opal Lee\u2019s mother, Mattie Broadous Flake.<\/p>\n She hopes this format will inspire young people to follow Lee and her mantra \u2014 “make yourself a committee of one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean don\u2019t work with other people,\u201d Roch\u00e9 said. \u201cDon\u2019t wait for other people to make the changes you wanna see.\u201d<\/p>\n Campaign aims to train new generation of Black historians<\/p>\n When Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders were issued last year, Jarvis Givens, a professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard, was thousands of miles away teaching in London, where Black History Month is celebrated in October. He had already been contemplating writing a book for the centennial. <\/p>\n Watching Trump’s \u201cattack\u201d cemented the idea, Givens said.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to kind of devote my time while on leave to writing a book that would honor the legacy that gave us Black History Month,\u201d Givens said.<\/p>\n The result is \u201cI\u2019ll Make Me a World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month,\u201d a book with four in-depth essays that comes out Tuesday. The title is a line from the 1920s poem \u201cThe Creation\u201d by James Weldon Johnson, whose most famous poem, \u201cLift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,\u201d is known as the \u201cBlack National Anthem.\u201d <\/p>\n Givens examines important themes in Black history and clarifies misconceptions around them. <\/p>\n The book and the research Givens dug up will tie into a \u201cliving history campaign\u201d with Campaign Zero and Afro Charities, Mckesson said. The goal is to teach what Woodson believed \u2014 younger generations can become historians who can discern fact from fiction.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I grew up, the preservation of history was a historian\u2019s job,\u201d Mckesson said, adding his group’s campaign will teach young students how to record history.<\/p>\n How the \u2018father of Black history\u2019 might feel today<\/p>\n Born in 1875 to formerly enslaved parents, Woodson was among the first generation of Black Americans not assigned to bondage at birth. He grew up believing that education was a way to self-empowerment, said Robert Trent Vinson, director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. <\/p>\n The second Black man to earn a doctorate at Harvard University \u2014 W. E. B. Du Bois was the first \u2014 Woodson was disillusioned by how Black history was dismissed. He saw that the memories and culture of less educated Black people were no less valuable, Vinson said.<\/p>\n When Woodson established Negro History Week in 1926, he was in an era where popular stereotypes like blackface and minstrelsy were filling in for actual knowledge of the Black experience, according to Vinson. This sparked the creation of Black history clubs and Woodson began inserting historical lessons \u201con the sly\u201d in publications like the \u201cJournal of Negro History\u201d and the \u201cNegro History Bulletin.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOutside the formal school structure, they\u2019re having a separate school like in churches or in study groups,\u201d Vinson said. \u201cOr they\u2019re sharing it with parents and saying, \u2018you teach your young people this history.\u2019 So, Woodson is creating a whole educational space outside the formal university.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1976, for the week’s 50th anniversary, President Gerald Ford issued a message recognizing it as an entire month. There was pushback then over the gains the Civil Rights Movement had made, Givens said. <\/p>\n As for today’s backlash over Black and African American studies, Vinson believes Woodson would not be surprised. But, he would see it as a sign \u201cyou\u2019re on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a level of what he called \u2018fugitivity,’ of sharing this knowledge and being strategic about it,\u201d Vinson said. \u201cThere are other times like in this moment, Black History Month, where you can be more out and assertive, but be strategic about how you spread the information.\u201d<\/p>\n Resistance to teaching Black history is something that seems to occur every generation, Mckesson said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will go back to normalcy. We\u2019ve seen these backlashes before,\u201d Mckesson said. \u201cAnd when I think about the informal networks of Black people who have always resisted, I think that is happening today.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Tang reported from Phoenix.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.clickorlando.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For academics, historians and activists, the past year has been tumultuous in advocating the teaching of Black history in the United States. Despite last year proclaiming February as National Black History Month, President Donald Trump started his second term by claiming some African American history lessons are meant to indoctrinate people into hating the country. 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