By, Ruel Nolledo | Freelance Writer
February 2, 2026
“There is no more powerful force than a people steeped in history. And there is no higher cause than honoring our struggle and ancestors by remembering.”
– Lonnie Bunch, historian
On February 7, 1926, Dr. Carter Woodson announced the first Negro History Week, a new annual tradition intended to highlight the history and contributions of Black Americans. Woodson had originally intended the weeklong event as an educational endeavor, with participating schools getting lesson plans, posters and other materials for use in their classrooms.
Over the years, that weeklong observance spread throughout the country and even across the oceans. It also grew from a single week to an entire month, with Kent State University holding the first Black History Month in 1970. Others soon followed, and in 1976, the year of the U.S. Bicentennial, President Gerald Ford proclaimed February as Black History Month.
This year, we join families and communities throughout Los Angeles in celebrating Black History Month. This year’s theme, “A Century of Black History Commemorations,” was selected by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) as a means of not only celebrating the commemorations themselves but also highlighting how studying and remembering Black history transforms the lives of people today.
“We have a wonderful history behind us,” Woodson once told an audience at Hampton Institute. “If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, ‘You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else.’ … We are going back to that beautiful history, and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements.”
Woodson was not the only one working to shed light on the hidden history of Black Americans during that time. In Oakland, journalist Delilah Beasley spent nine years digging through archives, diaries and papers before publishing “The Negro Trail Blazers of California” in 1919. The book meticulously chronicled the history of Black men and women in the Golden State — laborers, teachers, farmers, mechanics, physicians and more — from the 1800s to the early years of the 20th Century.
Around that same time, Charlotta Bass was also working on documenting the Black experience some 300-plus miles south of Oakland. As the owner and editor of The California Eagle, one of the oldest Black-owned and operated papers in the nation, Bass was a fierce advocate for improving the lives of Black Americans. For her, journalism was a means of both chronicling Black history while also seeking to change its course for the better. The California Eagle is recognized today not only for its place in history but for its role in documenting history as it unfolded.
Today, First 5 LA is honored to be part of this 100-year-old tradition of commemorations. And even as we celebrate the past, we stand proudly with the families and communities of Los Angeles in facing the future.
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