In September of 1915, historian Carter G. Woodson and minister Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH). It is known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). This organization was dedicated to promoting and researching the achievements of Black Americans and others of African descent. This group went on to sponsor the first national Negro History week which took place on the second week of February in 1926. This date was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
In the following decades, mayors across the country issued proclamations every year recognizing Negro History Week. By the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into Black History Month on many college campuses. Black History Month was officially recognized in 1976 by president Gerald Ford and has been recognized annually by presidents every year since.
This year's theme "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 experiences of Black people. Indeed, work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture. Be it 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." - ASALH
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.
To learn more about this year's theme and past themes visit the ASALH website.
