’28 Days of Black History’ shines a light on Black voices
Photo courtesy of 28 Days of Black History
In 1915, Dr. Carter G. Woodson and Jesse E. Moorland founded the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which gave way to the modern recognition of Black History Month. Their mission was to promote the study of Black history and celebrate the accomplishments of Black people in their respective fields.
28 Days of Black History is a “virtual exhibition of 28 works that celebrate Black legacy in the U.S.,” according to their website. The website is a project of Anti-Racism Daily, a daily newsletter started by author and public speaker Nicole Cardoza. The organization sends over 90 thousand emails to subscribers each day, containing information on current events paired with historical and personal context to illustrate the persistence of racism on an international scale. 28 Days of Black History sends subscribers works by Black creators once a day throughout the entirety of February, comparing the service to a virtual museum.
According to the website, each email contains “the highlighted work, historical significance, notes from [their] curator, reflection/discussion questions [and] action items to carry that work forward today.” The discussion questions are meant to guide conversations about Black history with family, friends, colleagues and peers. The action items, by extension, aim to help subscribers dismantle anti-Blackness within their daily lives.
The collection kicked off Black History Month with a collage titled “Bad Blood” by artist, writer and bioethicist Obiora N. Anekwe regarding the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that began in 1932. The collage is part of a greater work by Anekwe called “Ancestral Voices Rising Up: A Collage Series on the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.” Calling on the constant looming presence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the discussion questions joining this work address the mistrust communities of color hold toward the medical industry in response to centuries of medical racism and racial violence.
“Anekwe chronicles the American tragedy of an unethical human experiment conducted on African American men. He gives the viewer a perspective of this human atrocity through the voice of art,” states the book’s description. “As such, his collages speak to the ancestors of our past and transform the blues of an everyday people into a hope for human renewal.”
Other works compiled in the first week of the publication include a discussion about “The Black History Bulletin,” a publication founded in 1937 that continues to produce information about Black history, in addition to a discussion about the continuation of Black-led media organizations. Further, the first week of the subscription included discussions of Black feminism through the lens of the “Combahee River Collective Statement” of 1977, a consideration of the events leading up to and following Billie Holiday’s performance of “Strange Fruit,” in addition to a discussion of racial violence and the disproportionate impacts of the War on Drugs on Black communities. The first week of the project closes with “Dance on the Volcano” by Marie Vieux-Chauvet, a fictional narrative about the Haitian Revolution, and the hierarchy developed through racial and class distinctions.
The collection is curated by Camille Bethune-Brown, a Black history curator “working at the intersection of race and disability studies,” according to her bio, and Shanaé Burch, who is currently pursuing her doctorate in public health education at Columbia University, where she is “studying health equity through the lens of better leveraging arts and culture for wellbeing,” according to her bio.
The project aims to assist in facilitating conversations about Black history and the lasting implications and consequences of racism, especially in the United States. The project, much like the original Anti-Racism Daily newsletter, also prompts subscribers to consider the content of the works in relation to their daily lives, while also recommending additional learning content to engage with outside of the newsletter.
Though the project is free to subscribe to, each email includes a link for donations to help the program continue, with a recommended donation of $1 to $28 for each email received during Black History Month. 28 Days of Black History also creates an archive of missed content for subscribers who joined the project later in the month, allowing all readers to have equal access to their resources and discussion questions.
