For Black writers and creatives like me, Black History Month (BHM) can be something like the Christmas season. Joy permeates the air as the month gifts us plenteous opportunities to celebrate the contributions of Black people in the US and the African diaspora.
Our celebrations might include attending parades and educational events where Black teenage girls in St. Louis recite “Phenomenal Woman” and young Black men in Greenville, South Carolina, proudly proclaim, “I am somebody!” The month incites an unapologetic celebration of Black life and culture, our chance to be unashamedly “Blackity Black.” For some, it’s insisting that both Santa and Jesus are Black; for others, it’s an all-Black Super Bowl halftime show lineup that includes crip walking. (Like I said—Blackity Black!)
But this year, the celebratory air that usually surrounds the month-long festivities has been polluted by measures against diversity, equity, and inclusion measures in the courts, companies, and the federal government. These efforts have targeted decades-old civil rights laws and practices that have engendered more just and equitable treatment for Black Americans.
The rise of antidiversity initiatives has left me disoriented and struggling to breathe while simultaneously trying to navigate how to celebrate Black History Month this year. Even the word celebrate feels inappropriate. Perhaps honor is a more befitting word. So to honor BHM, I’m considering how best to ensure that Black folk are neither erased from the pages of US history nor excluded from the nation’s pathways to prosperity. In short, I’m trying to figure out how and if “we gon’ be alright,” as Kendrick Lamar says.
To start, I’m praying—both alone and with my prayer partners—asking God for wisdom for how to proceed individually and collectively. I’m also looking to history books to see how my spiritual ancestors operated. How exactly did they invite justice to “roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream” (Amos 5:24)? And just as importantly—how can we? How do we live justly in unjust times? Do we march? Defy immoral laws? Protest by withholding our dollars?
But for an answer, we need look no further than Scripture and this year’s Black History Month theme, African Americans and Labor, to know how to honor BHM this year. I can remember and reward. We can remember and reward.
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which selects the month’s annual theme, wrote,
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 Bible is filled with countless examples of God remembering and asking us to remember those who are treated unjustly, those who are poor, those who are enslaved, widows, and orphans. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, God uses his people to provide for those on the economic margins through tithes, Jubilee, generous gifts, miracles, and Spirit-led entrepreneurship.
In 1 Kings, God provides flour and oil for the widow at Zarephath so she and her son can survive a famine. Then in 2 Kings, God provides oil (again to a widow) so she can sell it instead of being forced to sell her sons into slavery. And in Acts, the early church is so unified that some members eagerly sell their homes and possessions to give to those in need. Scripture is filled with countless examples of God remembering those on the financial margins and asking us to do the same.
But perhaps one of the greatest examples of God remembering is the story of the children of Israel, particularly their enslavement and eventual deliverance and restoration. In an interview about her book A Sojourner’s Truth: Choosing Freedom and Courage in a Divided World, Natasha Sistrunk Robinson highlighted how this biblical story has anchored African Americans for generations:
Even for the slaves, once they learned the story that people were born and died in slavery, their thought was, If God delivered the Israelites from 400 years of slavery, then most certainly he is able to deliver us.
And delivered we were, albeit differently. Whereas the Israelites left enslavement with gifts of silver and gold, we Black folk left with no such fortune. We left with never-to-be-realized promises of “40 acres and a mule,” the “gifts” of Jim Crow laws and the Reconstruction that birthed Black Codes, and now the proposed erasure of that history through laws meant to eliminate these stories from school textbooks and libraries.
And whereas the Israelites had a singular leader, Moses, who ushered them out of slavery, African Americans have had several leaders who have labored to usher us to freedom: law-breaker Harriet Tubman, orator-activist Sojourner Truth, and love-activist Martin Luther King Jr.
BHM isn’t merely an opportunity to remember the accomplishments of these and other Black leaders. It’s also an opportunity to remember how, generation after generation, God has used Black believers to usher in justice and righteousness. BHM is our opportunity to remember how God responded to their prayers, their songs, their petitions, and their protests.
In Reading While Black, Esau McCaulley writes, “Hungering and thirsting for justice is nothing less than the continued longing for God to come and set things right. It is a vision of the just society established by God that does not waver in the face of evidence to the contrary.”
From Abraham and Moses to Harriet “Moses” Tubman and MLK Jr., our spiritual ancestors have grappled with what it means to live and love and travail in the “not yet” space—the space between praying with pressed palms that his kingdom come and will be done and actually seeing the kingdom come.
Honoring Black History Month is acknowledging that we still live in the “not yet.” Because of this, the month is an opportunity not just to remember how God worked through our spiritual ancestors but to continue their work today. This opportunity is for all believers.
This month, we can model our actions after an all-loving God who remembers those who have been treated unjustly, rewards them for their labor, and restores what was withheld. There are several practical ways everyone can remember and reward Black labor.
First, educate yourself and your spiritual community about how your Black neighbors and congregants are experiencing justice or injustice in their neighborhoods and places of employment. Did you know, for example, that Black men and women make, on average, significantly less money than their white and Asian counterparts? Did you know that this is true even for Black professionals? News outlets like the National Association of Black Journalists’ News & Views report on issues affecting Black communities, and organizations like the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) work hard to protect the rights of Black people and other people of color.
To that end, look for ways to support Black labor in your everyday life and in the life of your church community. Start with one item on this list and continue throughout all of 2025.
Restaurants and eateries. Historically, Black cooks often have been unpaid, underpaid, or unrecognized for their culinary contributions. To honor Black labor, fill up your pantry and fridge with yummy food items made by Black entrepreneurs. To discover new restaurants in select major cities, visit EatOkra.
Shopping and local services. When buying gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas, consider buying from Black-owned businesses. Consider the services you use regularly. Are there any Black-owned dry cleaners you can use? Coffee shops you can frequent? A simple internet search may turn up some great local options.
Professional Services. List professional services you use, perhaps only sporadically or annually. Not happy with your tax accountant? Look for one through the NSBCPA. If you search, you’ll locate numerous associations that list the contact info for Black professionals across various industries.
Journalism and thought leadership. Subscribe to Faithfully Magazine, a publication I write for, which provides a Christian perspective. Also consider buying and engaging the work of Christian leaders like Lisa Sharon Harper, Jemar Tisby, and Truth’s Table.
My prayer is that by remembering and rewarding Black labor, we’ll all live and breathe more easily in the “not yet.” I pray that like our spiritual ancestors, we will lead lives that illustrate how much we hunger for God’s kingdom, this Black History Month and beyond.
Chanté Griffin is a journalist and the author of Loving Your Black Neighbor as Yourself: A Guide to Closing the Space Between Us.
