With February featuring everything from African American barrier-breaking winners in the Olympics, to the death of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the Obamas not appearing in the Jeffrey Epstein files, it’s been an eventful Black History Month.
Despite awesome, inspiring, racist, shocking, painful and encouraging moments for many in the African American community, this February emphasized the importance of commemorating Black history.
This year, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is recognizing “A Century of Black History Commemorations,” as the organization’s founder, Carter G. Woodson, established Negro History Week in February 1926.
Ten decades later, Black History Month serves as a reminder of African Americans’ strength and resilience despite slavery and racism, and their incredible contributions to the nation and world overall. Further, 100 years later, as African Americans and other marginalized groups navigate continued racism, inequities and threats to civil rights, examining Black history-makers offers inspiration in order to combat modern-day injustices.
“The goal of Negro History Week was to study, teach, and promote the significant contributions that Black people had made to American society,” ASALH President Karsonya Wise Whitehead wrote in a Black History Month 2026 statement. “From our writers to our inventors, our politicians to our teachers, our artists to our musicians— it was designed to document our lives from American slavery to freedom and to fill in the historical gaps that were deliberately overlooked in an effort to miseducate our children.”
As ASALH uplifts a century of Black history and the United States nears its 250th anniversary celebration, The Washington Informer is highlighting local Black history makers not only in the last 100 years, but since the nation’s inception.
Even before 1926, Black people— like Frederick Douglass (February 1818-February 20, 1895), the celebrated abolitionist and orator, who lived in Anacostia— walked D.C. streets, belonged to local churches, owned businesses, created community, and contributed to the District’s development overall.
The U Street corridor, once known as “Black Broadway,” boomed with Black-businesses from the Reconstruction Era to the mid 20th century. While many of those businesses are long gone, sites like Bohemian Caverns and the still-in-operation Lincoln Theatre highlight how the local performance scene was not only a hot-spot, but influenced the nation. Further, establishments such as Industrial Bank, Lee’s Flower Shop and Ben’s Chili Bowl– founded in 1934, 1945 and 1958, respectively— stand as symbols of resilience and proof of the power in supporting, preserving and maintaining Black businesses and narratives.
“We built this country. We tamed the land, and we cultivated the crops. Our unpaid labor and the buying and selling of our bodies are the cornerstone of America and of American capitalism. Our blood is mixed with the soil, and the wind carries forward our tears of both sorrow and joy. We fought in the wars for democracy abroad and at home,” Whitehead explained. “To celebrate America at this moment requires us to fully situate ourselves within the narrative, not as a footnote, but as main characters who have helped shape this American experience and the American story.”
While President Donald Trump works to largely ignore parts of Black history and attack the overall freedom fight, knowing the stories of the District’s African American changemakers— from five, to, 50, 100, and 250 years ago— is critical as the nation nears its semiquincentennial in July.
As part of D.C.’s 24th anniversary celebration of emancipation, Douglass delivered a speech in the nation’s capital on April 16, 1886, warning of the danger of “ignorance” and injustice.
“The American people have this to learn: that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them,” Douglass said, “neither person nor property is safe.”