#national-recognition

#national-recognition

If you know anything about the basic origins of Black History Month then you know that we weren't given' anything. The question of who owns and authorizes Black History Month holds particular relevance now, in its centennial year, and at a time when efforts to celebrate, preserve, and acknowledge Black people's past in this country are under attack.

On March 2, 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks' more famous act of defiance, Claudette Colvin, a Black high school student in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger.

She remembers walking with her big brothers down a sidewalk fractured by the roots of old oak trees while children played hopscotch on the playground. She remembers going outside and clapping erasers together so that plumes of chalk dust rose above her head. And she remembers being told that she was attending a school that many white parents had taken their children out of just a few years earlier because they didn't want them sitting in class with Negroes.

They offered a rare window into the lives, struggles and aspirations of African Americans, and a way for me to feel connected to a community far beyond my immediate environment. Through Ebony, I was introduced to towering figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Their courage, moral clarity and commitment to justice shaped how I thought leadership and service.

My new book, " On Mindful Democracy: A Declaration of Interdependence to Mend a Fractured World," is inspired by King and Hanh's friendship. These two men bonded over the shared insight that how we show up for each other matters, as does how we advocate for social change. In his sermon " Loving Your Enemies" King announced, "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." Hanh taught: There is no way to peace, peace is the way.

In any liberal morality play, Democrats always get to be the shivering, oppressed black people, while Republicans have to play the part of Bull Connor, Birmingham, AL's racist commissioner of public safety. Except the facts are exactly the opposite. I'm sure you're bored of hearing this, but Connor was a Democrat, as were all the politicians promising "massive resistance" to racial integration. Republicans were the ones forcing Democrats to abide by federal law, along with a few John Fetterman- style Democrats.

The park will "honor our greatest Americans, including black icons like Booker T. Washington, Jackie Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Coretta Scott King, Muhammad Ali, and many others," the action reads.

Following presidential custom, Trump issued a National Black History Month proclamation on Feb. 3 that maintained "black history is not distinct from American history - rather, the history of Black Americans is an indispensable chapter in our grand American story." Yes, but: Its rhetoric, critics say, stands in tension with the Trump administration's recent actions, raising questions about whether commemoration without context ultimately obscures more than it honors.

King's intuition was that white people with lower incomes would support this type of policy because they could also benefit from it. In 1967, King argued, "It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income . . . which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro's economic problem and the economic problem with many other poor people confronting our nation."

During the Civil Rights Movement, the Chicago Freedom Movement took place from 1965 to 1967. Dr. King co-led this campaign with local activists to confront racial discrimination, segregation, and housing inequities in one of America's largest cities. Unlike the Jim Crow laws of the South, segregation in Chicago was often enforced through policy, lending practices and real estate discrimination rather than explicit laws.

Laketran and Geauga Transit, both located in northeastern Ohio, will honor the life and legacy of Rosa Parks through a weeklong tribute recognizing her courage and the lasting impact of her actions on civil rights in America. Rosa Parks, born February 4, became a symbol of strength and resistance in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, AL. Her decision helped ignite the Montgomery Bus Boycott and propelled the nation forward in the fight for equality. Today, she is remembered as the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement."