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Donald K North Library: Black History Month 2025

Welcome!

Black History Month 2025

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

Association for the Study Of African American Life and History. (2025). 2025 Black History Theme Executive Summary African Americans And Labor. https://asalh.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2025-Black-History-Theme-Executive-Summary-1.pdf 

Library, Archive, & Museum Sites

Library of Congress: Black History Month
This Library of Congress website provides general information about the origins and history of Black History Month in addition to online exhibits, resources for teachers, and links to Black History Month webpages on other government sites.
 

African American History | National Archives
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has a large amount of material documenting the experience of African Americans. NARA features many of these records online along with other resources. 

  Amistad Research Center

The Amistad Research Center is the nation’s oldest, largest, and most comprehensive independent archives specializing in the history of African Americans and other ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities.

National Museum of African American History & Culture
As a citizen workforce, African Americans continue to chart new paths toward economic stability, personal growth, and racial uplift. From enslaved workers in the 19th century to agricultural, industrial, and professional workers in the 20th and 21st centuries, Black men and women have always been vital to transforming and tooling America.

Smithsonian: Black History Month
Celebrate Black History Month with Smithsonian events, resources, exhibitions, and podcasts. The 2025 theme is "African Americans and Labor" with a focus on the various and profound ways that work of all kinds intersects with the collective experiences of Black people. 

International African American Museum
This is a museum where you can create your own experience—from quiet reflection in the African Ancestors Memorial Garden to an immersive, eye-opening tour through our galleries to transformative discoveries in the Center for Family History. Check for updates, read our guidelines, and begin to plan your own journey.

 

BHM 2025 Theme:Labor

Video

Glossary of Definitions and Core Concepts for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

Selected From:
Edmunds, M. & Lind, D. (2021, August 9). Glossary of Definitions and Core Concepts for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Advisory Group on DEI in Health Services Research. 

A
• Advocate:
(1) A person who actively works to end intolerance, educate others, and support social equity for a marginalized group (noun); (2) To actively support/plead in favor of a particular cause, the action of working to end intolerance, educate others, etc. 
• Agency: In social justice work, a psychological concept that relates to the development of an individual identity and ability to act independently and make conscious decisions to set and achieve personal goals; related to self-determination.
• Ally: In social justice work, a person who uses their privilege to advocate on behalf of others who don’t hold the same privilege. 
• Anti-Racism: As defined by author and historian Ibram X Kendi, a group of deliberate actions that identify and describe racism in order to dismantle it and create an equitable society.
• Anti-Racist: A set of beliefs and actions that oppose racism and promote the inclusion and equality of Black and brown people in society.

B
• Bias: An inclination of preference, especially one that interferes with impartial judgment.
Bigotry: Prejudice carried to the extreme of overt hatred, often carried to the point of violence.
BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color); An umbrella term for non-white people, especially as they face racism and discrimination in a white-dominant culture.
• Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa  

C
• Caste:
An artificial hierarchy that helps determine standing and respect, assumptions of beauty and competence, and even who gets the benefit of the doubt and access to resources.
• Centering: Making the center of attention; centering marginalized people means putting them at the center of attention rather than at the margins, where they are not visible.  
• Change agent: A person inside or outside an organization or system that helps to transform how it operates.
Classism: Any attitude or institutional practice which subordinates people due to income,occupation, education and/or their economic condition.
• Code-switching: Adjusting one’s speech, appearance, behavior, and expression in ways that will optimize the comfort of others in exchange for fair treatment, quality, service, employment opportunities, and other benefits.
Colorblind: The belief that everyone should be treated “equally” without respect to societal,economic, historical, racial or other difference. This has the effect of allowing people to ignore persistent discrimination and makes people of color feel unseen and marginalized.
• Colorism: Skin-color bias, explicit or implicit, in favor of lighter skin color; coined by Alice Walker
• Critical Race Theory: A theoretical framework that examines the role of racism on social and economic status; coined by Kimberly Crenshaw in late 1980s
Cultural Appropriation: The non-consensual/misappropriated use of cultural elements for commodification or profit purposes – including symbols, art, language, customs, etc. — often without understanding, acknowledgment, or respect for its value in the original culture

D
• Decenter whiteness: The default power structure in the US has white people and beliefs in its center; decentering whiteness puts other people at the center of power and attention.
• Decolonize: The active and intentional process of unlearning values, beliefs, and conceptions that have caused physical, emotional, or mental harm to people through colonization. It requires a recognition of systems of oppression.  
• Diversity: Socially, it refers to the wide range of identities. A broad view includes race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, veteran status, physical appearance, etc. It also involves different ideas, perspectives, and values.  
• Discrimination: The unequal treatment of members of various groups, based on conscious or unconscious prejudice, which favor one group over others on differences of race, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, language, age, national identity,religion, and other categories.

E
• Emancipation:
A process of making the white racial frame visible so it can be analyzed and counter-framed from the perspectives of Critical Race Theory and racial equity.
Emotional tax: The unseen mental and emotional work that people from marginalized backgrounds have to do every day to feel included, respected, and safe.
• Equity: The fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that fairness regarding these unbalanced conditions isn eeded to assist in the provision of adequate opportunities to all groups.  
• Ethnicity: Refers to shared cultural practices, perspectives, and distinctions that set apart one group of people from another. The most common characteristics distinguishing various ethnic groups are culture, religion, language, country of origin, and heritage.

F
• Folx:
A gender-neutral variation on the word “folks” that refers to a group of people

H
• Harassment:
The use of comments or actions that can be offensive, embarrassing, humiliating, demeaning, and unwelcome.  
• Health disparities: A particular kind of health difference that is closely linked with social, economic, and environmental disadvantage. Health disparities adversely affect group of people who have systematically experienced greater obstacles to health based on their racial or ethnic group or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion.
• Health equity: “Everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences,i ncluding powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and, safe environments, and health care.”  
• Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): Any college or university that was founded before 1964 with the mission of educating Black Americans.

I
• Implicit bias:
Negative associations expressed automatically that people unknowingly hold an affect our understanding, actions, and decisions; also known as unconscious or hidden bias.
• Inclusion: Providing equal opportunity to all people to fully engage themselves in creating an environment and a cultural attitude whereby everyone and every group feels accepted, has value, and is supported by a foundation based on trust and mutual respect.
• Institutional racism: How institutional policies and practices create dif and opportunities for different groups based on racial discrimination.  
• Internalized racism: Private racial beliefs held by and within individuals as beliefs, biases, and prejudices. For people of color, it can involve believing in negative messages about oneself or racial group as a direct result of systemic racism experienced on an individual level.
• Interrogate: In the context of Critical Race Theory, a process that examines policies andpractices that are taken for granted by prioritizing the voices of participants and respecting themultiple roles held by scholars of color.
• Intersectionality: Frameworks and strategies that address a vision of racial justice thatembraces the intersections of race, gender, class, and the array of barriers that disempowerthose who are marginalized in society; coined by Kimberle Crenshaw.
• “Isms”: A way of describing any attitude, action or institutional structure that subordinates(oppresses) a person or group because of their target group. For example, color (racism), gender(sexism), economic status (classism), older age (ageism), religion (e.g., anti-Semitism), sexual orientation (heterosexism), language/immigrant status (xenophobism), etc.  

J
• Jim Crow laws.
State and local statutes in the US enacted after the Civil War to legalize segregation. Named for the character “Jim Crow” in minstrel routines in the 1830s where awhite actor performed in Blackface.

M
• Marginalization:
A view or process that keeps people who lack power outside of the poweenter, at the margins.
• Microaggression: The verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, insults, orbelittlement, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, ornegative messages to target persons based solely upon discriminatory belief systems  .
• Misogynoir: Racist, anti-Black misogyny experienced by Black women

N
• Neurodiversity:
The concept that humans don't come in 'normal' package. It recognizes that all variations of human neurological function need tobe respected as just another way of being, and that neurological differences like autismand ADHD are the result of normal/natural variations in the human genome. 

O
• One-drop rule:
In the United States, any person with any known Black ancestry is defined as Black. In the Jim Crow South, this became known as the “one-drop rule.” (Davis, 1991).
• Oppression: The systemic and pervasive nature of social inequality woven throughout socialinstitutions as well as embedded within individual consciousness. Oppression fuses institutionaland systemic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry, and social prejudice in a complex web ofrelationships and structures.  

P
• Paper bag test:
Within Black communities, a historical practice of preference shown toindividuals whose skin was as light in color as a brown paper bag (Kerr, 2006).
• Passing: A social phenomenon of being perceived, and choosing to be perceived, as part of aparticular racial group on the basis of appearance and behaviors (adapted from Davis, 1991).
• People of Color: A collective term for men and women of Asian, African, Latinx, and Native American, Native Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian descent; as opposed to the collective “white”.
• Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs): Those institutions of higher learning in which white people make up more than 50% of the student enrollment and where the faculty, leadership, and culture are white.
• Prejudice: An inclination or preference, especially one that interferes with impartial judgment and can be rooted in stereotypes that deny the right of individual members of certain groups to be recognized and treated as individuals with individual characteristics.
• Privilege: Exclusive access to or availability of material and immaterial resources based on the membership in a dominant social group.  
• Psychological safety: A climate in which people are comfortable being (and expressing) themselves without fear of being punished or humiliated.

R
• Race:
A social construct with no biological basis or scientific standing that artificially divides people into distinct groups based on characteristics such as physical appearance (particularly skin color), ancestral heritage, cultural affiliation, cultural history, ethnic classification, and the social, economic, and political needs of a society at a given period of time.  

• Racial capitalism: The process of deriving value from the racial identity of others

• Racial equity: Equity involves trying to be just, impartial, and fair and to give people what they need to enjoy full, healthy lives. Equality aims to ensure that everyone gets the same things in order to enjoy full, healthy lives but it can only bring equity if everyone starts from the same place and needs the same things (adapted from AECF, Equity v. Equality,

• Racial justice: The systematic fair treatment of people of all races that results in equitableopportunities and outcomes for everyone. All people are able to achieve their full potential in life, regardless of race, ethnicity or the community in which they live.  

• Racialization: A classification system that emerged in support of European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination. It does not represent the patterns of human biological diversity but has been tied historically to the use of race to explain a belief with no scientific basis in the inherent superiority and inferiority of different groups based on skin color, facial features, and hair type.

• Racism: A complex system of racial hierarchies and inequities that systematically privilege white people and disadvantage people of color. It includes the micro or individual level of personal beliefs, both conscious and unconscious or implicit; interpersonal actions such as bigotry, hate speech or racial violence; organizational or structural discrimination such as promotion and salary disparities; and societal or systemic level, e.g., discriminatory laws, policies and practices

• Reconstruction. In US history, the period after the Civil War where constitutional amendments were enacted to provide Black people with equal protection and the right to vote. Ended in 1877 when the Supreme Court blocked Congressional efforts to protect formerly enslaved people

• Reparations: The legal concept and process of addressing human rights violations through compensation to address past wrongs. May take many forms, including individual payments and settlements, scholarships, waiving fees, and initiatives to offset injustices, including landbased compensation, economic development, apologies, and other means. Applied to US slavery, it means that the US Government, corporations, and individuals who benefitted from the forced free labor of enslaved people should provide reparations. In the US, “reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.” 

S
• Self-determination:
The right of an individual or a group of people to make choices and direct their own lives, including the right to create organizations that serve their interests. Used in disability rights, civil rights, and human rights, and other fields.
• Social determinants of health: Conditions in the environment where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide variety of health, functioning, and quality of life outcomes and risks.
• Social justice: A form of activism based on principles of equity and inclusion that encompasses avision of society in which the distribution of resources is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure. Social justice involves social actors who have a sense of their own agency as well as a sense of social responsibility toward and with others and society as a whole.  
Stereotype: A form of generalization rooted in blanket beliefs and false assumptions, a product of processes of categorization that can result in a prejudiced attitude, uncritical judgment, an intentional or unintentional discrimination. Stereotypes are typically negative, based on little information that does not recognize individualism and personal agency.  
Structural inequality: Systemic disadvantage(s) of one social group compared to other groups,rooted and perpetuated through discriminatory practices (conscious or unconscious) that are reinforced through institutions, ideologies, representations, policies/laws, and practices. When these inequalities are related to racial/ethnic discrimination, it’s referred to as systemic or structural racism.  
• Structural racism: Structural racism (or structural racialization) is racial bias across institutions and society. It describes the cumulative and compounding effects of an array of factors that systematically privilege white people and disadvantage people of color.

• System of oppression: Conscious and unconscious, non-random, and organized harassment, discrimination, exploitation, discrimination, prejudice, and other forms of unequal treatment that impact different groups. Sometimes the term is used to refer to systemic racism.  

T
• Tokenism: Presence without meaningful participation, with the expectation that a singleindividual represents all the members of a group they belong to. For example, a superficial invitation for the participation of members of a certain socially oppressed group, who are expected to speak for the whole group without giving this person a real opportunity to speak for themselves.  
• Trigger or triggering event: Something that makes you relive a trauma

U
• Unconscious bias: Social stereotypes about certain groups of people that individuals form outside their own conscious awareness. Unconscious bias is far more prevalent than conscious prejudice and often incompatible with one's conscious values.

W
• White fragility: Feelings of guilt, sadness, confusion, defensiveness, or fear experienced by white people when they are challenged by racial stress, which triggers a range of defensive moves such as calling law enforcement for assistance or avoiding situations perceived to be uncomfortable. Can have the effect of making people of color solely responsible for navigating inappropriately racialized situations due to the discomfort and denial of white people. (Term coined by Robin DiAngelo in her book White Fragility.

• White nationalism: Belief rooted in white supremacy and feelings of entitlement and racial superiority that calls for the US to be an all-white nation because of belief that diversity will lead to the destruction of whiteness and white culture.

• White privilege: “Since white people in America hold most of the political, institutional, and economic power, they receive advantages that nonwhite groups do not.”  
White supremacy: An ideology in which white people are believed to be superior to nonwhite people.

• Whiteness: The way that white people, their customs, culture, and beliefs operate as the standard by which all other groups are compared.

Heritage University Library Books


African Americans, labor, and society: organizing for a new agenda
Mason, Patrick L.
c2001
331.639 Af833m

 

"All labor has dignity"
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968.; Honey, Michael K.; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968.
c2011
331.011 K5801a

 

American work: four centuries of black and white labor.
Jones, Jacqueline, 1948-.  
c1998
331.639 J7101a

 

Black Americans and organized labor: a new history.
Moreno, Paul D., 1965- .
2006
331.8809 M8154b

 


Black and blue: African Americans, the labor movement, and the decline of the Democratic party.
Frymer, Paul. 
2008
331.880 F949b

 


Black labor in Richmond, 1865-1890. 
Rachleff, Peter J. 
1989
975.545 R1148b

 

The Black worker: race, labor, and civil rights since emancipation.
Arnesen, Eric. c2007
331.639 B5611a

 


Conflict of interests: organized labor and the civil rights movement in the South, 1954-1968.
Draper, Alan.
1994
305.800 D7912c

 


For jobs and freedom: race and labor in America since 1865.
Zieger, Robert H.
c2007
331.639 Z623f

 

 

For labor, race, and liberty George Edwin Taylor, his historic run for the White House, and the making of independent Black politics.
Mouser, Bruce L.
c2011
Online

 

From black power to prison power: the making of Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union.
Tibbs, Donald F.
2012
Online

 

Labor of love, labor of sorrow black women, work, and the family, from slavery to the present
Jones, Jacqueline, 1948-;
c2010
Online

 

 

Life and labor in the new New South.
Zieger, Robert H.
2012
Online

 

 A new South rebellion: the battle against convict labor in the Tennessee coalfields, 1871-1896.
Shapiro, Karin A.
c1998
331.51 Sh222n

 


Only one place of redress: African Americans, labor regulations, and the courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal.
Bernstein, David E.
2001
344.730 B4582o

 

Southern labor and Black civil rights: organizing Memphis workers.
Honey, Michael K.  1993
331.6396 H7571s

 

Texas labor history.
Glasrud, Bruce A.; Maroney, James C., 1936-. 

2013
Online

 

To 'joy my freedom: Southern Black women's lives and labors after the Civil War.
Hunter, Tera W., author.
1997
Online

 

Unfree labor: American slavery and Russian serfdom
Kolchin, Peter.
1987
Online

Black Labor--Curriculum

 

5 Black Leaders that Shaped the Labor Movement
 National Education Association
Racial justice and economic justice are intrinsically intertwined. However, far too often in our nation’s history, those who benefit from the existing order have used race and class to divide us. These five Black leaders strengthened both the labor and civil rights movements by fighting discrimination in unions and building strong coalitions for the welfare of all.

The Making of African American Identity: Volume I, 1500-186
National Humanities Center
Collections of primary resources compatible with the Common Core State Standards — historical documents, literary texts, and works of art — thematically organized with notes and discussion questions.

A Nation Bound by Slavery
Searchable Museum
From as early as the colonial period, enslaved Black people figuratively and literally built the foundations of the nation, including the U.S. Capitol and the White House. Additionally, they built churches, universities, state houses, and profitable landscapes. Their labor provided a comfortable and even luxurious way of life for some Americans, even as freedom and citizenship were denied to Black people.

Black History Month 2025 Teaching Resources
TeachStarter
This collection of Black History teaching resources was created by the teacher team at Teach Starter, with printable and digital options that have been designed to meet Common Core and state standards. The majority include editable options so you can easily differentiate them for your students, and each one has been reviewed by a member of our teaching team to ensure they're classroom-ready — so you can save time on your lesson planning.

Black History Month Digital Toolkit
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Join us throughout February in sharing key stories of Black people's often invisible labor of all kinds — across time, industry, and community. 

Black History Month Resource Guide for Educators and Families
Center for Racial Justice in Education
As we enter February, the Center for Racial Justice in Education is providing resources to be used beyond the scope of this one-month. Unless Black history is taught throughout the year, it perpetuates an “othering” of Black Lives and Black students, and is also a manifestation of anti-Blackness.  Ensuring the ongoing integration of Black history and experiences throughout all curriculum is imperative as educators continue to uplift every student and reinforce that Black lives matter everyday.

Black Domestic Workers
Women & the American Story
Ninety percent of Black working women in the late 19th century were employed in domestic service. Domestic service is work in a private home, which includes cleaning, laundry, cooking, and childcare. It was an industry in which Black women could easily find work. Black servants tended to stay in the industry longer than immigrant domestics. Immigrant domestics typically left the workforce after marrying or having children. In many cases, Black families could not afford for women to leave the workforce. As a result, Black women often spent more time with the white families they worked for than with their own. 

Black Labor--Primary Sources

African Americans at Work
National Museum of African American History and Culture
From enslaved workers in the 19th century to agricultural, industrial, and professional workers in the 20th and 21st centuries, African Americans were a vital part of the American workforce. The photographs from the collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture document African Americans at work from the 1860s to today.

African American History Primary Documents
BlackPast
The following are documents which have contributed to the shaping of African American history.  These documents are a starting point for additional research and discussions that help further our understanding of the history of people of African ancestry in the United States.

THIST 440 Black Labor in America: Primary Sources
University of Washington Libraries
Primary sources include documents or artifacts created by a witness to or participant in an event.  They can be firsthand testimony or evidence created during the time period that you are studying. 
Primary sources may include diaries, letters, photographs, newspaper articles, government documents, poems, novels, plays, and music.  The collection and analysis of primary sources are central to historical research.

More Primary Sources

Black Labor--History

Black Studies in the Department of Labor 1897 - 1907
US Department of Labor
These Department of Labor studies were closely related to the historically more famous Atlanta University publications. The first and the last departmental investigations were done by Atlanta University, and though other studies were independent, the relationship with Atlanta University was close. Both the Atlanta and the Department of Labor investigations were among pioneering "scientific" studies of the condition of blacks in America, and differed from the popular and primarily inspirational conferences at Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes which were "propaganda for social uplift."

African Americans and the American Labor Movement
National Archives
Researchers can avail themselves of Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, a multivolume documentary editing project.

The Freedom volumes were compiled from twenty-five National Archives record groups, including Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Record Group 105); Records of Civil War Special Agencies of the Treasury Department (RG 366); Records of the United States General Accounting Office (RG 217); the Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917 (RG 94); the Records of the Office of the Paymaster General (RG 99); and Records of District Courts of the United States (RG 21).

Strengthening America at Home: Black Workers in WWII
US Department of Labor

The Second Great Migration, beginning in 1940, saw the number of Black workers in the defense industry triple. More than 1 million Black workers migrated to the North and West, seeking industrial jobs from defense contractors where the average weekly wages were much higher.

African American Workers Built America
The Center for Law and Social Policy
African American labor was crucial in industry, agriculture, and service. Although the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), was established in 1884, it only started gathering consistent data on African American workers in 1972.

The Roots of the Black Working Class
National Humanities Center
This webinar will help educators master the basic history of the Black working class in America, strategies to include this rich history in classroom instruction, and ways to think about expanding students’ understandings of race and class.

 The Power of the Black Working Class
The Jacobin
Historian Keisha Blain spoke with Joe William Trotter Jr about the “golden age” of the black artisan, the Great Migration’s role in reshaping the black working class, the ways black workers helped construct American cities, the discrimination African-American laborers faced and, the composition of the contemporary black working class.

Black Workplace Pioneers
US Department of Labor
America’s workforce thrives on diversity. Throughout our history, the variety of skills, experiences and perspectives of this nation’s workers fueled innovation and growth. This month, we’re highlighting Black workplace pioneers who blazed trails that created opportunities and improved the lives of generations of Americans. 

Last Hired, First Fired: How the Great Depression Affected African Americans
History Channel
The Great Depression impacted African Americans for decades to come. It spurred the rise of African American activism, which laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

Black Workers Remember
The Prospect
Throughout the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, blacks as a group were barred from machine work within the industrial sector, and from white-collar clerical and service work. "Modernization" wore a white face.

Honoring Black History World War II Service to the Nation
US Army
For more than 200 years, African Americans have served courageously in every conflict in U.S. history. They endured individual and institutional racism, while fighting for social equalities and opportunity. During WWII, more than 2.5 million African American men registered for the draft, and African American women volunteered in large numbers.


Photo essays in the Library of Congress blog, "Picture this"

Black Labor--Slavery

Slavery in America
History Channel
Many consider a significant starting point to slavery in America to be 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 enslaved Africans ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The crew had seized the Africans from the Portuguese slave ship São João Bautista. Enslaved Africans, however, had been present in regions such as Florida, nearly one century before.

Pre-Civil War African-American Slavery
Library of Congress
African Americans had been enslaved in what became the United States since early in the 17th century. Even so, by the time of the American Revolution and the eventual adoption of the new Constitution in 1787, slavery was a dying institution. As part of the compromises that allowed the Constitution to be written and adopted, the founders agreed to end the importation of slaves into the United States by 1808.

Exploiting black labor after the abolition of slavery
The Conversation
With the help of profiteering industrialists, white southerners found yet a new way to build wealth on the bound labor of black Americans: the convict lease system.

Working After Slavery
Searchable Museum
Establishing economic independence was crucial for newly freed African Americans during Reconstruction. But without land of their own or fair wages for their labor, they would remain under the power of white landowners. Blocked from attaining their goals, thousands of African Americans left the South in search of better opportunities.

 

A Brief History of Slavery in the United States
National Battlefield Trust
White bond servants paid their passage across the Atlantic through indentured labor, it did not solve the problem. Tensions between settlers and former indentured servants increased the pressure to find a new labor source.  Early in the seventeenth century, a Dutch ship loaded with African slaves introduced a solution—and yet paradoxically a new problem—to the New World. Slaves proved to be economical on large farms where labor-intensive cash crops, such as tobacco, sugar, and rice, could be grown.

How slavery became America’s first big business
Vox
Historian and author Edward E. Baptist explains how slavery helped the US go from a “colonial economy to the second biggest industrial power in the world.”

Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Throughout the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million captured men, women, and children were put on ships in Africa, and 10.7 million arrived in the Americas. The Atlantic Slave Trade was likely the costliest in human life of all long-distance global migrations.

 

Black Labor--Wage Inequity

Understanding Black-White Disparities in Labor Market
Economic Policy Institute
One of the most durable and defining features of the U.S. labor market is the 2-to-1 disparity in unemployment that exists between black and white workers. Attempts to explain the gap often cite observed average differences in human capital—particularly, education or skills—between black and white workers as a primary cause.

 

Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality
Harvard University

The 1966 extension of the minimum wage can explain more than 20% of the reduction in the racial earnings and income gap during the Civil Rights Era. Our findings shed new light on the dynamics of labor market inequality in the United States and suggest that minimum wage policy can play a critical role in reducing racial economic disparities.

The History of the U.S. White-Black Wage Gap from 1969 to Now

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
How much does widespread economic growth narrow the white-Black wage and salary gap? This is an important question, as research has shown that during times of economic prosperity, Black people benefit disproportionately.

One in Four Black Workers Report Discrimination at Work
Gallup Center on Black Voices
Black Americans experience various mistreatments at much higher rates than other racial or ethnic groups do. And while racial discrimination in the workplace is illegal under federal law, about one in four Black employees report having been on the receiving end of discrimination at work in the past year alone.

 

Black Labor--Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Blacks in STEM jobs are especially concerned about diversity and discrimination in the workplace
Pew Research Center
Among STEM workers, blacks stand out for their concerns that there is too little attention paid to increasing racial and ethnic diversity at work, their high rates of experiencing workplace discrimination, and their beliefs that blacks are not usually met with fair treatment.

 

Despite Backlash, DEI Programs Still Matter
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
Legal threats to affirmative action and backlash to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming mean that companies are rethinking whether and how to commit to these ideals. However, the core racial issues that prompted companies to revisit their policies, practices, and outcomes haven’t gone anywhere.

 

A History of DEI and the Future of Work
Inclusion Geeks
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are integral components of modern workplace culture. These initiatives aim to create environments where different perspectives are valued, opportunities are equitable, and all individuals feel included and respected. An important aspect of DEI’s evolution is the concept of multiculturalism, which gained prominence in the 1990s and 2000s.

The History and Growth of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): How far do we away (sic) to achieve the goal
Linkedin
Workplace diversity training first emerged in the mid-1960s following the introduction of equal employment laws and affirmative action. Prior to this, many companies had known histories of racial discrimination. 

A Brief History of DEI
Reframe
As society began to integrate during and after the Civil Rights Movement, so did the American workplace. From the founding of employee-led resource groups at big tech companies to the passage and enforcement of the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Act, the integration demands of the 1960s and ‘70s paved the way for the DEI initiatives of the 1980s and beyond.

The History Of DEI Resistance In America
Fortune
Backlash is not new; anytime there has been progress made toward racial equity and justice in America, resistance and backlash, or “white backlash” has ensued. White backlash is defined by Merriam-Webster.com as “the hostile reaction of white Americans to the advances of the civil rights movement.” There are several examples of white backlash throughout history.

Black Labor--On the Job

What is code-switching? Why Black Americans say they can't be themselves at work
USA Today
Code-switching is frequently considered a required skill for Black Americans, whether it’s a motorist adopting a more deferential tone during a traffic stop or a new employee straightening her hair.

Top 5 Struggles Your Black Colleagues Have, but they never shared
Linkedin
In the journey to address racial injustice within corporate America, the path is neither straightforward nor easy. It's a landscape filled with subtle divides and unspoken truths, where black and white employees often navigate very different experiences. These differences extend beyond just personal interactions and infiltrate the very core of corporate culture and policy.

Subtle racial slights at work cause job dissatisfaction, burnout for Black employees
Rice University
Black employees face a host of subtle verbal, behavioral, and environmental slights related to their physical appearance, work ethic, integrity, and more, causing job dissatisfaction and burnout, according to a  study from Rice University.

The Marginalized - Working While Black Part 1 (Full Program)The Marginalized - Working While Black Part 2 (Full Program) 
Can TV
The Marginalized, examines the systems and beliefs that continue to deny Black people parity in the American workforce. Working While Black examines the historic drivers of inequity; the oft unspoken hierarchy known as the American caste system that 'castes' Black people as inferior to the ruling class. 

Black Labor--Unions

African-American's Rights | Unions Making History in America

University of Maryland
Throughout the 19th and early 20th century, the labor movement struggled to overcome racism in the midst of a society divided by race. In 1866, the National Labor Union declared it would admit members regardless of an individual’s color or nationality believing unity was key to union strength. However, its affiliated unions continued to exclude or segregate workers by race, as white members tried to limit competition from African Americans for jobs

Honoring Black Labor Leaders 
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
 Among the most prominent examples was the Colored National Labor Union, formed in 1869 as a national coalition of Black workers across many industries to improve working conditions, fight discrimination among other trade unions, and advocate for a national public education system that provided equal opportunity to Black Americans

Black History Month: Black Workers Helped Build Labor Movement

Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) 
Throughout U.S. labor history, Black workers have played a key role not only in forming unions, but helping secure improved pay, benefits and working conditions even amid ongoing discrimination.

Organized Labor and Racial Wage Inequality in the United States
National Library of Medicine
This study points to the need to move beyond class-based analyses of union decline to an understanding of the gendered role unions once played in mitigating racial inequality.

Black Labor Advocacy

Valuing and Championing African American Workers Is Long Overdue
Center for Law and Social Policy
African American workers and their labor built the United States of America. From their foundational labor in agriculture and infrastructure under the compulsion of chattel slavery to their subsequent forging of American industry in the face of segregation, Black workers have generated immense wealth for the nation over the past few centuries.

Working Wage: Black Labor Advocacy in the South
Pulitzer Center
The Charlotte Post’s Working Wage: Black Labor Advocacy in the South project examines the growing advocacy of African Americans in the region’s workplace. The three-part series includes reporting on why Black people are demanding better pay and treatment on the job through the organization of unions that call for management and corporate accountability.

Working Black Women

Unsung Black Women Heroes of the Labor Movement
Oxfam
This Black History Month, we are shining a light on some of the lesser-known leaders of labor movements in America as well as shouting out Black women who are currently leading the way to address root causes of inequality.

Black women’s labor market history reveals deep-seated race and gender discrimination
Economic Policy Institute
Black women’s labor market position is the result of employer practices and government policies that disadvantaged black women relative to white women and men. Negative representations of black womanhood have reinforced these discriminatory practices and policies. Since the era of slavery, the dominant view of black women has been that they should be workers, a view that contributed to their devaluation as mothers with caregiving needs at home. African-American women’s unique labor market history and current occupational status reflects these beliefs and practices.

Black Women Built That: Labor and Workers' Rights
National Women’s Law Center
This Black History Month, we are making space to highlight a few of the radical Black women who have dedicated their lives to organizing; women who fought long and hard, so that all working people can realize not just basic workplace rights, but a life of dignity, respect, and joy. As the saying (coined by another radical female labor leader) goes, workers deserve bread – the basics like a living wages and safe working conditions, and we deserve roses too.

Celebrating Strength and Resistance: The Black Women Workers Roundtable
National Employment Law Project
This year, we were inspired by a rich history of storytelling, research, and intellectual contributions that lift up Black women’s work and leadership in labor – along with solutions that shed light on the root and uprooting of racial capitalism and occupational segregation. After months of shared study and discussion with our colleagues, we initiated a series of one-on-one conversations with workers followed by a worker roundtable focused on occupational segregation.

‘Black Rosies’: The Forgotten African American Heroines of the WWII Homefront
History Channel
the iconic Rosie image doesn’t convey is the diversity of that work force—specifically the more than half-million “Black Rosies” who worked alongside their white counterparts in the war effort. Coming from throughout the United States, these “Black Rosies” worked tirelessly—in shipyards and factories, along railroads, inside administrative offices and elsewhere—to fight both the foreign enemy of authoritarianism abroad and the familiar enemy of racism at home. For decades, they received little historical recognition or acknowledgement.

 

Black History Month History

National Black History Month has its origins in 1915, when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. This organization is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History External (ASALH). Through this organization, Dr. Woodson initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926. Dr. Woodson selected the week in February that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two key figures in the history of Black Americans.

Carol M. Highsmith, photographer. The African American History Monument, completed in 2001 on the state capitol grounds in Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina. 2007. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.

In 1975, President Ford issued a Message on the Observance of Black History Week External urging all Americans to "recognize the important contribution made to our nation's life and culture by black citizens." In 1976, ASALH expanded this commemoration of Black history in the United States from a week-long observance to Black History Month, which also has been known as African American History Month. In the same year, President Ford issued a Message on the Observance of Black History Month External. In subsequent years, presidents continued to issue messages External honoring Black History Month.

In 1986, Congress passed Public Law 99-244, which designated February 1986 as "National Black (Afro-American) History Month.” This law noted that February 1, 1986 would “mark the beginning of the sixtieth annual public and private salute to Black History.” The law further directed the president to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe February 1986 as Black History Month with the appropriate ceremonies and activities. President Reagan issued Presidential Proclamation 5443 External, which proclaimed that “the foremost purpose of Black History Month is to make all Americans aware of this struggle for freedom and equal opportunity.” This proclamation stated further that this month was a time “to celebrate the many achievements of African Americans in every field from science and the arts to politics and religion."

Since 1996, presidents have issued annual proclamations for National Black History Month. In January 1996, President Clinton issued Presidential Proclamation 6863 for “National African American History Month." The proclamation emphasized the theme for that year, the achievements of Black women from Sojourner Truth to Mary McLeod Bethune and Toni Morrison. Since 1996, Congress has regularly passed resolutions honoring Black History Month. In February 1996, the Senate passed Senate Resolution 229 commemorating Black History Month and the contributions of Black American U.S. Senators.

Library of Congress. (n.d.). Black History Month: A Commemorative Observances Legal Research Guide.  https://guides.loc.gov/black-history-month-legal-resources/history-and-overview