DR. CARTER G. WOODSON: Known as the “Father of Black History,” Woodson (1875-1950), the son of former slaves, understood the importance of education on striving to secure and maximize one’s divine right of freedom. PHOTO COURTESY OF HISTORY.COM

“In 1926, when Dr. Carter G. Woodson – the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the son of formerly enslaved parents, a former sharecropper and miner, and the second Black person to receive a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University – sent out a press release announcing the first Negro History Week, a gear shifted,” wrote Dr. Karsonya (Kaye) Wise Whitehead recently.

Woodson chose February, said Whitehead, because African Americans already were celebrating historic achievements tied to the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln (2/12) and Frederick Douglass (2/14).

“Dr. Woodson did not wait for the celebration of our history to be proclaimed,” said Whitehead, “he proclaimed it. He did not wait for someone to give him permission to celebrate what we have contributed to this country, he celebrated it.”

Similarly, said Whitehead, the 30th person and eighth woman to serve as national president of ASALH, “We do not celebrate because we are given permission, we celebrate because we are the permission givers. We do not wait for Black History Month to be proclaimed, we proclaim it. We do not wait to be seen, we see ourselves. We do not have to be told the story of America because we are writing it, we are telling it, we are owning it, and we are pointing the way to it.”

The 2025 Black History Month theme, “African Americans, and Labor,” developed by ASALH, focuses on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experience of Black people.

Work, ASALH emphasized, is at the very center of much of Black history and culture, whether “the traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies, debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, self-help strategies and entrepreneurship in Black communities, or organized labor’s role in fighting both economic and social injustice, Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora.”

The 2025 Black History Month theme, “African Americans and Labor,” sets out to highlight and celebrate the potent impact of this work, the group said.

In contrast with last year’s theme, “African Americans and the Arts,” and consistent with the previous year’s, “Black Resistance,” this year’s theme underscores the federal administration’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the federal workforce and private companies.

Meanwhile, countless organizations, such as Fort Lauderdale’s African American Research Library and Cultural Center, are commemorating Black History Month. Another is the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is hosting myriad events honoring African Americans and Labor. The museum has curated "Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World" which "immerses visitors in the freedom-making practices of Black communities navigating both the histories and the legacies of racial slavery and colonialism."

According to ASALH, “Considering Black people’s work through the widest perspectives provides versatile and insightful platforms for examining Black life and culture through time and space. In this instance, the notion of work constitutes compensated labor in factories, the military, government agencies, office buildings, public service, and private homes.

“But it also includes the community building of social justice activists, voluntary workers serving others, and institution building in churches, community groups, and social clubs and organizations. In each of these instances, the work Black people do and have done have been instrumental in shaping the lives, cultures, and histories of Black people and the societies in which they live.

“Understanding Black labor and its impact in all these multivariate settings is integral to understanding Black people and their histories, lives, and cultures.”

Africans were brought to the Americas to be enslaved for their knowledge and serve as a workforce, the organization said, “which was superexploited by several European countries and then by the United States government. During enslavement, Black people labored for others, although some Black people were quasi-free and labored for themselves, but operated within a country that did not value Black life.

“After fighting for their freedom in the Civil War and in the country’s transition from an agricultural based economy to an industrial one, African Americans became sharecroppers, farm laborers, landowners, and then wage earners.

“Additionally, African Americans’ contributions to the built landscape can be found in every part of the nation as they constructed and designed some of the most iconic examples of architectural heritage in the country, specifically in the South.

ASALH notes that 2025 “marks the 100-year anniversary of the creation of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids by labor organizer and civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, which was the first Black union to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor. Martin Luther King, Jr. incorporated issues outlined by Randolph’s March on Washington Movement such as economic justice into the Poor People’s Campaign, which he established in 1967.

According to ASALH, the theme, “African Americans and Labor,” aims “to encourage broad reflections on intersections between Black people’s work and their workplaces in all their iterations and key moments, themes, and events in Black history and culture across time and space and throughout

the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora. Like religion, social justice movements, and education, studying African Americans’ labor and labor struggles are important organizing foci for new interpretations and reinterpretations of the Black past, present, and future.

“Such new considerations and reconsiderations are even more significant as the historical forces of racial oppression gather new and renewed strength in the 21st century.”

The ASALH Academic Program Committee is inviting proposal submissions for panels, workshops, roundtables, papers, posters, media sessions, and Woodson Lightning Rounds at the 2025 ASALH Annual Meeting and Conference to be held in Atlanta, GA on Sept. 24-27.

Visit asalh.org