‘Knowledge doesn’t die’: On Black History Month’s 100th anniversary, new attacks echo old erasures
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Negro History Week, the 1926 commemoration that eventually expanded (in 1976) into Black History Month.
For Phillip Warfield, a U.S. history PhD candidate and church historian at Arlington’s Community Praise Church, the milestone offers an opportunity to reflect not only on the observance’s evolution, but also on the long, ongoing struggle to safeguard and interpret Black history.
Warfield said the very origin of Negro History Week was rooted in restoring erased stories.
“It was this recovery of Black history … Black people were looking to celebrate everyday Black contributions to United States history,” Warfield said. “Over the past 100 years, we’ve gone from celebrating great men to (celebrating) everyday people and everyday figures, and that part has never changed.”
The women behind the movement
While Dr. Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week, Warfield emphasized that its national growth came from Black female teachers and club women.
“One of the ones that I’m thinking of right now is the National Association of Colored Women … many of them were teachers, and so once they took hold of this, it was easy for them to disseminate Black knowledge in the classroom,” he said.
Warfield credits those women with expanding the teaching of Black history even beyond the efforts of Woodson.
“Black history (was) being taught informally in churches and community centers, where previously it may have only been reserved for a formal classroom experience. Now you’ve got it everywhere, and these Black women, Mary McLeod Bethune and others, (were) leading this charge.”
In Washington, D.C., he highlighted Nannie Helen Burroughs as an especially important voice.
“Nannie Helen Burroughs, a local D.C. educator, (founded) her National Training School for Girls and made sure, through her own public speaking and through influence, that Black history would be taught locally,” Warfield said. “Every single city has their own Nanny Helen Burroughs, and I just want to make sure that we remember people like her.”
A new wave of historical erasure
In 2025 and 2026, debates over how the nation remembers its past reached a new peak as federal actions targeted historical interpretation and even threatened landmark monuments.
In 2025, a Justice Department opinion opened the door for U.S. presidents to shrink or revoke national monuments, placing even recently established sites — such as the Emmett Till and Mamie Till‑Mobley National Monument — at risk. CBS News reported that the monument, designated in 2023 across Mississippi and Illinois, became vulnerable amid anti‑DEI initiatives and budget cuts.
Simultaneously, the Trump administration ordered a review of how American history is presented at National Park Service sites. By 2026, dozens of signs and exhibits addressing subjects such as slavery, Black history, Native American history, and LGBTQ history had been removed or flagged for removal from national parks following the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order.
Warfield said these modern battles fit into a long pattern of pushback.
“From the very beginning, Negro History Week was a reform movement … every single moment has been a moment of recovery of Black history,” he said. “This … is just another chapter, but Black people have always found a way to tell the truth, and we’re not going to stop doing that.”
He connected monument disputes to a deeper need to contextualize history thoughtfully.
Citing the Lincoln Emancipation Monument in Washington, D.C., he said: “I think it’s important that we contextualize what monuments are created, and why they’re put up in the first place … They can even decide that we’re going to tear these things down … but we know about it. Knowledge doesn’t die.”
Warfield believes the founder of Negro History Week would see today’s observance as part of the continuum he envisioned.
“He wanted this to expand to the month, expand to the year … Woodson, I believe, would see this as a natural continuation,” he said.
Warfield closed with a reminder for those feeling discouraged.
“If you’re feeling discouraged about the ways that Black history is under attack, know that you’re not alone in history … You see something that’s missing, you put it there. Don’t wait for somebody to tell you.”