How advocates are stepping up for Black History month as federal agencies scale back – USA TODAY

WASHINGTON ‒ With some Black History Month activities being scaled back by the federal government, history and education organizations are ramping up efforts to fill the void.
“We are stepping in to that gap,’’ said Karsonya Wise Whitehead, president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. “You don’t wait to be celebrated. We celebrate ourselves.’’
Wise Whitehead said she’s been getting calls from concerned workers at state, local and federal governments since President Donald Trump issued several executive orders ending support for diversity and inclusion and the Department of Defense issued a memo declaring “Identity Months Dead at DoD.”
“When our history is under attack what do we do? We stand up and we fight back,’’ said Wise Whitehead, also a professor of communications and African American Studies at Loyola University in Maryland. 
President Donald Trump made a point of saluting Black History Month and the contributions of some African Americans in a proclamation on Jan. 31, the eve of Black History Month.
“Throughout our history, black Americans have been among our country’s most consequential leaders, shaping the cultural and political destiny of our Nation in profound ways,’’ it read. 
Trump went on to name some American heroes, including abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and golfer Tiger Woods.
Every president since Gerald Ford in 1976 has issued a proclamation recognizing Black History Month.
Trump’s read, “This National Black History Month, as America prepares to enter a historic Golden Age, I want to extend my tremendous gratitude to black Americans for all they have done to bring us to this moment, and for the many future contributions they will make as we advance into a future of limitless possibility under my Administration.”
But a proclamation isn’t enough, said Wise Whitehead.
And she and others worry that even with Trump’s proclamation, the administration set a damaging tone when he signed an executive order last month rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the government.
“People need to stick with Black history, not just have it proclaimed, but actually sit with it, discuss it and think about its relevance and its importance today,” Wise Whitehead said.
Some Trump supporters have said singling out groups for identity months celebrations can be divisive.
New Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in the Jan. 31 memo that his staff could not use official resources, including their time, to host events related to cultural awareness months, including Black History Month, Women’s History Month and National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
“Efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,” the memo read.
Zebulon Miletsky, an associate professor of Africana Studies at Stony Brook University, noted that some companies are already following the government’s lead and cutting back on diversity initiatives and efforts, which could include such celebrations.
“That’s the danger,’’ he said. “That could happen because even though it’s not mandated by any law or executive order, that I’m aware of, companies like Target voluntarily chose to end their programs around diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Target was one of several companies to roll back its DEI initiatives after Trump signed an executive order banning them across federal agencies.
Black History Month is simply too ingrained now to cancel, Miletsky said. “And even if you write an executive order, you can’t cancel the Black inventions, the patents ‒ the 1000s of patents that have been issued to Black inventors,’’ he said.
Advocacy organizations are stepping up efforts to share Black history in response.
One group, called Teaching for Change, is providing free resources to teachers, including some books, to help with Black History Month lessons.
“So many places are scrubbing language and telling people to be careful,’’ said Deborah Menkart, executive director of Teaching for Change. “Our response is, this is the time that young people need to know history and to study history. They learn also from how adults respond. And if they were to see adults starting to censor, to self censor, that’s a lesson right in and of itself.”
Organizations and institutions that have more resources must take the lead, Wise Whitehead said.
The organization she leads, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, is leaning more into advocacy and aggressively getting the word out about Black history. It is using social media and its website to promote organizations, including federal agencies, hosting Black History Month events. Its also tapping its network to share more information.
ASALH was founded by Carter G. Woodson, often called the father of Black History.
Miletsky called it ironic that ASALH’s theme for Black History Month this year is African Americans and Labor.
“We’ve got a whole month-long list of events in which we’re going to be celebrating that concept and talking about that and here we have an example in real time of folks having pressure put on them ‒ federal workers in this case ‒ about what they can and cannot celebrate at work,’’ said Miletsky, also a member of the association’s executive board.
More:Black History Month starts Saturday. Here’s the history behind the month-long celebration
Meanwhile, he said, some protests have worked, noting a reversal by the U.S. Air Force to exclude the Tuskegee Airmen, Black military pilots, from course instructions.
“There are ways to push back in a constructive and effective manner that produces real results,’’ Miletsky said.
Several federal agencies have long celebrated Black History Month with presentations and keynote speakers.
Charles Hicks, nicknamed “Mr. Black History’’ in Washington, D.C, remembered attending a Black History Month event in 2016 at the Department of Justice where his longtime friend, the late-Dorie Ladner, a veteran of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was the special guest.
It was important, said Hicks, for staffers “to see someone who had been on the front line” of the Civil Rights Movement, and for those who didn’t know her or SNCC’s work to learn more.
It is not clear whether the Justice Department will hold a similar program this year or whether it was canceled because of the president’s order.
With or without Black History programs at federal agencies, those lessons will be taught, Hicks and other historians said.
“We’ll find a way,” said Hicks, who kicked off Jan. 31, a series of Black History activities in the region. “Nobody is going to stop because the government said, ‘You can’t do it here.’”
Hicks said many older people learned Black history before it was taught in schools. He pointed to Freedom Schools set up by civil rights activists, churches and other places in the communities where lessons were taught.
More:Black churches in Florida buck DeSantis: ‘Our churches will teach our own history.’
Menkart and others said it’s important to continue those programs, including in the workplace.
Most people “still have so much to learn about the history of this country,’’ Menkart said. “People need to have a deeper understanding of how that history is American history and until we come to grips with that history we really won’t be able to move forward.’’ 

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