This commemorative month serves as a mirror of the current political climate, so how do we revamp it?
It's Black History Month in the United Kingdom, and it feels like it’s time for a rethink. As time has passed, an celebration that began as a festivity and recollection of history, culture and the connections between Black populations worldwide, has adopted a corporate feel, expanding to include functions where individuals of African heritage are paid to address white audiences about hidden biases and “allyship”. The 2020s Black Lives Matter protests created a surge in the industry of displaying cultural sensitivity. However, that period has concluded. The tide has reached its height, leaving a sort of hollowed out legacy of what raising awareness is for.
The Background of Black History Celebration
First commemorated in the America and its northern neighbor, Black History Month was created in 1962 as “Negro History Week” by African American historian Carter G. Woodson with a week of commemoration and observance in the middle of February. Black History Month evolved from this campaign and was officially launched in 1970. Today it is observed not only in the US and Canada in February, but also in autumn in the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, Ireland and the the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The observance has transformed since those days, placing less emphasis on the accounts of the slave trade across the Atlantic and struggles for equality, and more on influential individuals of color in government, the arts, and social movements, and extensively acknowledging the contribution Black people have made to mold society. It is in educational institutions where Black History Month is most regularly observed, with talks and cultural events. But the manner the celebration is observed is a indication of the political moment. How it evolves is a valuable example in how appropriation leads to erosion: the transformation of Black History Month has hindered the objective of it, which is to address structural and organizational discrimination.
A Disconcerting Period
Hardly anything shows how important it is to reconsider Black History Month better than the specific period in which it occurs this year. In the United Kingdom, a reemerging right-wing in the guise of the Reform political group is top in opinion ratings. In the summer we witnessed the biggest extreme right demonstration in British history. Kemi Badenoch, the African descendant in charge of the right-wing political group, is a staunch adversary of Black Lives Matter, and we are in a place where a legislator feels empowered to say that the absence of Caucasian individuals in certain urban areas is a cause for alarm. Meanwhile, extreme conservative groups are growing in the European continent as a complete entity.
In the United States, a significant offensive against inclusion programs and preferential policies has been taken, often successfully, to the supreme judicial bodies of the country. A campaign to remove African American heritage and narrative from the archives is under way. One of the political figure's early administrative commands focused on the institution dedicated to Black heritage, and the renowned cultural organization, claiming they of a “concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history” by depicting the United States “as naturally discriminatory”.
Against this backdrop, the month symbolises how little it can be impactful if it is confined to either routine organizational acknowledgments, or depoliticized celebrations of historical achievements, rather than challenging the realities of the present. It also reveals how its short period means that it is separated from the broader ongoing work that is necessary. An academic expert, a educator at a learning establishment, articulated it most accurately when she expressed apprehension about the fleeting superficial actions of the observance. “The problem with adopting a symbolic stance”, she stated, “is that it frequently results in that Black History Month becomes a brief show rather than a driver of transformation.”
Reevaluating, Not Abandoning
Figuring out how to alter, change and broaden efforts for racial equality and recognition in such periods of dismay and anxiety is a difficult task. There is a urge to just do away with observances such as Black History Month completely, thinking they are no longer suitable, or are vestiges of an era that has been ineffective.
Yet, in spite of all this, Black History Month, and in fact the whole broad system and heritage of campaigns for equality – community-based BLM initiatives, diversity equity and inclusion initiatives, and indeed, including corporate presentations – form an infrastructure that a considerable labor has gone into. It is there not just to decay as the politics moves on (and in fact, regresses), but to be a dynamic entity.
So what would a contemporary active Black History Month appear as? To begin with, it would be more than a single focused period: something that is dispersed throughout the annual calendar (as various establishments are already beginning to do), elements of its material (particularly around prominent figures of color) included in educational programs. It would also be a era that does not shy away from political issues, and provides room for individuals, particularly youth, to share their anxieties and narratives. What value has mere awareness of the bygone era when it doesn’t reckon with the current situation of ultra-nationalist gatherings in the urban areas? Organizations who celebrate it should not be comforted with the passive language of “unconscious bias” and alertness to “microaggressions”, but faced with the dangers that face all if anti-racism is not treated with importance. Briefly stated, Black History Month should be made contemporary, urgent, and responsive. Perhaps an complete renaming is necessary – Present-Day African Heritage Celebration.
