100 Years of Black History Month Sparks “If It Weren’t For Us” Reflections
If it weren’t for us, where would America be?
Would it be shining from sea to sea?
Without enslaved labor being an economic engine of the revolution,
would America still have a constitution?
White Americans continue to debate the history in this nation,
so we continue the fight for full representation.
1776, America counts 250 years of history.
1619, we count 407, since those first ships arrival started our Black History.
2026 marks the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, with the theme “A Century of Black History Commemorations.” The theme honors a century of efforts to formally recognize Black history in the United States.
That effort began with Carter G. Woodson’s Negro History Week in 1926. This milestone reflects the evolution from local initiatives into a nationally recognized, month long observance.
While it may be the 100th anniversary of a “formal” Black History Month, our history does not begin there. Our history starts when the first slave ships arrived in 1619, nearly 200 years before America founded its independence in 1776.
Some historians debate the extent to which slavery directly enabled American independence. Though, what is not debated and cannot be debated is that slavery underpinned the colonial economy and enabled wealthy planters to finance the revolution.
The colonies first few streams of revenue came from agriculture, cash crops, and natural resources. Slave labor provided the unpaid work of such economic foundation, particularly through tobacco, that allowed the colonies to sustain themselves without Britian.
In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson launched the first Negro History Week. Woodson was the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the son of formerly enslaved parents, a former sharecropper and miner, and the second Black person to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.
He intentionally chose February because the Black community had already set aside the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln on February 12 and Frederick Douglass on February 14. These dates were used to recognize and celebrate their contributions to emancipation and abolition.
In 1976, Negro History Week, which by then had evolved into Black History Month, was officially recognized and proclaimed by President Gerald Ford. He urged Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans” during the nation’s Bicentennial.
That Bicentennial marked the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.
Fifty years later, this July, America will recognize its 250th anniversary. But as we take this month of February to formally recognize our achievements in this country, we cannot let the current president, Donald Trump, or his rhetoric, policies, and regression against the Black community consume us. We must remember the truth about our history and America’s as well, a nation that came around after us.
So, if it were not for Black Americans, where would America be?
Until then, good night and good luck.
