This year marks the centennial anniversary of the creation of Black History Month. Created in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week, the celebration of Black innovation, excellence and resilience expanded beyond a week. Despite being 100 years into the celebration, there has been a gradual effort to minimize the importance of acknowledging the contributions and history of Black people in the United States
Understanding why the celebration was proposed is integral to understanding why the erasure and minimization of Black history is disappointing. Woodson was an educator, author and historian born before World War I to illiterate parents. Woodson went on to become the second Black person to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard, with W.E.B. Du Bois being the first.
Woodson was a member of the American Historical Association, yet he was excluded from attending meetings.
He realized a white hegemonic perspective of history was being prioritized and that contributions of Black Americans were being underrepresented. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life in 1915. In his book, “The Mis-Education of the Negro” Woodson says African American contributions were “overlooked, ignored and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them."
Fast forward to 2026, and President Donald Trump’s administration’s executive orders are reversing decades of acknowledgment. This included scrutinizing the Smithsonian Museums’ exhibits and the National African American History Museum. There were attempts to erase contributions of Black people from federal training courses, including the Tuskegee Airmen from an Air Force training video, or the National Park Service removing a page featuring Harriet Tubman.
Black History Month has also grown to shed light on the sins of this country’s past. By removing these reminders or the contributions of Black people in this country, we set ourselves up to be surprised when these issues arise again. In a time when we are overwhelmed with multiple issues, having access to the past is important.
Understanding state violence isn’t new, and the cruelty of U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement evolved from the slave patrols, which would have helped people recognize patterns between the two sooner.
To know stories such as Africatown, Alabama, a town established by enslaved people who were aboard the last slave ship to America and became victims of air pollution as industrialization advanced, parallels the neighborhood pollution by generative artificial intelligence data centers currently.
Woodson said in “The Mis-Education of the Negro” that, “The oppressor has always indoctrinated the weak with his interpretation of the crimes of the strong.” Negligence of history keeps us in such cycles.
Chatasia Davis is a junior majoring in anthropology and the vice president of the Black Panther Legacy. BPL is a club that draws influence from the Black Panthers of the '60s. One of the key points in the Panthers’ Ten-Point Program was education.
“Educating ourselves about history is important because we don’t want to repeat a lot of things,” Davis said. “It also sometimes gives us clues to how we should move in the future.”
The BPL uses the Panthers’ knowledge and practices to navigate the present.
“We try our best to educate people about what happened in the past,” Davis said. “We also try our best to keep those same values when we hold events that educate people, or when we’re doing our own programs, like our free breakfast program. We try our best to bring those values forward in the things we do and the things we teach people.”
Davis also believes a lesson from the past we should use to improve our future is studying protests and organizers.
“We need to start learning how to protest as a united group,” Davis said. “People show up for one day, and then that's all they do. When I think it needs to be a lot more than that.”
Though acknowledging America’s brutal past of oppression is important, Woodson also understood the importance of representing Black Americans in a way that gave us pride and hope. Woodson’s vision for Black History Month was primarily to spotlight the contributions of Black Americans.
He also understood the importance of representation. Besides his own comments about motivating Black people through learning their own history, Woodson himself was an example of the need for representation. He provided a unique perspective on history at a time when institutions were primarily white due to segregation.
As time progressed, others noticed a lack of diversity and representation in institutions, and over time, this was addressed through diversity, equity and inclusion, and affirmative action. Both of those assets have been stripped after decades of hard work to achieve them for future generations.
“We can’t use diversity or inclusion … we’ve been told multiple times to stay away from those words,” Davis said. “Don’t use those words in your applications because they will automatically be denied.”
Bailey Smith, a senior majoring in retail and fashion merchandising and president of Ohio University’s Black Student Union, understood firsthand the effects of reversing DEI. She spoke about the importance of giving a platform to the marginalized.
“All year long, everyone else gets to have a voice and gets to have a say, they get to feel important,” Smith said. “Even with Ohio University's administration changing things they rightfully have to do because of Senate Bill 1, they still aren’t getting the Black voices they should to get a consensus from the community.”
BSU had to rely on funds from local businesses and alumni to hold events this year, including its Multicultural Expo budget for the expo was significantly reduced this year.
“The whole point of the Multicultural Expo is to highlight voices that are drowned out, especially with the (Involvement) Fair,” Smith said. “You can’t get to all the clubs, so we have that one specifically catered to multicultural clubs).”
Even though there have been setbacks, it's never too late to educate yourself. This country might have a dark past and arguably present, but there’s also been resistance and optimism that we have to learn from.
Don’t limit your exploration of the past to Black History Month; we need the lessons of the past to guide our future more than ever. Woodson understood a century ago how important the remembrance of this history would be.
Dawnelle is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Dawnelle about their column? Email them at db948724@ohio.edu.
