From the February DPP News
Black History Month 2025: Time to Reset
In 1915, Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History with the intent of countering the “lost cause narrative” driven by the pro-confederacy culture emerging from the South. This narrative depicted Black Americans as deficient in physical, mental and emotional capacity and accommodating to their former status of enslavement.
Then in 1926, the Association formally established Negro History Week with a broader mission to “promote, research, preserve, interpret, and disseminate Black life, history, and culture to the global community.”
In 1986 the US House and Senate designated the month of February as National Black History Month. In an accompanying Presidential Resolution, the following is asserted: “The foremost purpose of Black History Month is to make all Americans aware of the struggle for freedom and equal opportunity. …. The American experience and character can never be fully grasped until the knowledge of Black history assumes its rightful place in our schools and our scholarship.” (Proclamations, Feb. 24,1986 National Archives)
Yet, in February 2025 nearly a century later, Black History Month is under fire as some leaders within the federal government and across the nation are challenging the very premise of Black History Month. Black History Month observance is being likened to a “so called “woke agenda” and DEI policies.
Many Black Americans consider this as a call for our erasure.
In response, Detroit People’s Platform (DPP) an organization fighting for equity and racial justice in the nation’s largest majority Black city is calling on Black Detroiters and conscious allies to join in the following:
Commit to the advancement of Black liberation on all fronts
Organize and fight with DPP for a just and equitable Detroit
And, let the first act in honor of Black History Month be one of JOY and REVERENCE in celebration of ancestors like
Dr. Carter G. Woodson who had the Courage and Foresight to plan for such a time as this. And let us HOLD the SPACE for the generations to come.
STAY UP TO DATE
Join our mailing list and stay up-to-date on all the events and activities at the Detroit People’s Platform.