The Ongoing Journey of Black History

Five years ago now, on a walk in the Lafayette Oaks neighborhood, my husband and I became aware of a graveyard off Edenfield Road that held the sacred remains of African Americans who lived and worked on plantations in the Welaunee area.  According to the sign, “The Munree (Fleishmann) Cemetery of Welaunee Plantation,” that local memory dates back to the 1800s is believed to be one of the oldest Black cemeteries in the Big Bend. It is the final resting place of an estimated 250 persons, predominately slaves, in graves that are for the most part unmarked, and is being preserved by a grassroots effort in our community through the Munree Cemetery Foundation, established in 2012. You can learn more about the cemetery and how you can help at https://www.munree.org/ 

Dr. Carter G. Woodson - Harvard Historian & Founder of Black History Month

It was the first time that I experienced deeply what I had previously only read or heard about, and that is the slender thread of family history that is readily available to many Black people in our nation. And sadly, it is a slender thread for Black cultural history and the remarkable Black accomplishments upon which our nation was built. Which is why Black History month is so critically important and why Harvard Black historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the celebration 100 years ago.  

This February 2026 another remarkable black historian, Dr. Jarvis R. Givens, released a timely book titled, “I’ll Make Me A World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month.” It has been called “a powerful and essential meditation on the origins, evolution, and future of Black History Month”  [and] offers an inspiring vision for how Black history can be a source of power, truth, and possibility.”

Dr.  Givens is a Professor of Education and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is also the co-founding faculty director of the Black Teacher Archive (BTA), a digital open access portal of more than 50,000 digitized pages of Colored Teachers Association (CTA) materials from nearly 70 institutions, housed at Harvard and dedicated to recovering and preserving the histories of Black educators. Dr. Givens says of the BTA, that has gratefully received funding from a number of sources including the initial grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2020,

“Hopefully this archive and the stories it contains about Black teachers can help people see African American history in a new light; and in doing so, achieve deeper appreciation for the crucial role teachers will have to play in addressing current crises we face in schools and society.” - Jarvis R. Givens

What concerned Dr. Woodson 100 years ago concerns Dr. Givens and many others today. Dr. Woodson,  while a student at Harvard and the University of Chicago, was told by a professor that there is no such thing as Negro history, or at least none worthy of respect. Similarly, today there are those who attempt to ignore, suppress, erase, or distort black history. As the son of a slave, Dr. Woodson dedicated his life to a truthful representation of history, understanding that denying people their history denies them their humanity. It was his hope that in preserving Black history, it would transform how Black folks viewed themselves and how the world viewed them.  

Dr. Jarvis R. Givens

Dr. Givens continues that quest today, in the books he is writing, the research he is doing, the lectures he gives, and the projects he promotes. He says in an interview about his latest book on the “Zinn Education Website,” that there is an ongoing tug-of-war when it comes to power dynamics in terms of who gets to be seen as a legitimate interpreter of history. In the book, heskillfully presents the lives of both Black people of rare achievement as well as the lives of everyday Black folks – “the work-a-days,” as Woodson described them years ago –creating a nuanced understanding of Black history and culture. He writes of “Black Memory Work” and “Black Memory Workers,” everyday people like in those in our own community who are striving to learn the stories of the persons buried in the Munree Cemetery and how important their memory work is to strengthening the true historical knowledge of our nation.  

As we end Black History Month, perhaps we should return to its original intention when first started 100 years ago this year, to make it not a time-limited celebration but an everyday awareness and appreciation of the true history of Black people in the building and sustaining of our nation, affirming their innate dignity.

I think of a poignant story told by Dr. Howard Thurman, a remarkable Black preacher, teacher and visionary, a story that his beloved grandmother told him. She remembered as a slave that on Sundays they had two worship services.  One was by the authorized preacher who told them how to be a better slave for God.  The other was by their own preacher, himself a slave, who ended every service, “You are not slaves. You are the children of God.” 

So many of us would agree completely with the slave preacher, who encouraged his flock to affirm their innate dignity. It is an underlying virtue in so many religions and spiritualities to value allpeople. From the ancient Sanskrit, “Namaste,” we share at the end of Pilates class, a respectful Hindu greeting that means “the divine within me bows to the divine within you,” to “God created us all in God’s own image” found in Abrahamic religions, to the Golden Rule that is found in eight world religions, teaching in the Islamic version, “The Prophet Muhammad said, ‘None of you [truly] believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself.’” Perhaps we all can begin to call on our religion or spirituality or human decency to value all people deeply.  

As February ends, may it be the beginning of our learning more about the Black experience and remarkable spirit.

In his interview historian Givens says, “Black history isn’t only the story of Black people being victims. I was always given narratives where Black agency and dynamism and vitality of Black life were present as well. Black people, despite unimaginable pains and suffering, continue to pursue beauty, continue to find ways of nurturing themselves and the communities that they are a part of for their own dignity.”

This is the remarkable spirit that inspires me as I journey on in Black history awareness beyond the month of February.

It is my prayer for us all.