Welcome to Black History and Future Month 2026. Just like everything else in 2026 thus far, this year’s BHFM will be different than any other you have experienced in our lifetime and should! As we reflect, remember repair, and restore dignity, agency, and accountability so that what has been done to Black Americans and those throughout the African diaspora does NOT happen to others anywhere around the world!
Let us begin DAY 1 with the music and lyrics from “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.
From Saint Peter Relates an Incident by James Weldon Johnson.
Two Steps Forward One Step Back
“Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.”
Learn, unlearn, and relearn everyday! On DAY ONE of BHFM, we invite you to explore the Equal Justice Institutes reports. These EJI reports ground the work of Uprooting Qahr and help us to unpack the miseducation, lies, erasure, that accelerates efforts to divide and conquer.
It has been inspiring to see so many White Americans in the streets demanding rule of law with ICE OUT protests and even the No Kings efforts. I am also reminded of the intergenerational lack of accountability and consequences that results in disproportionate resources, agency, and a seat at every decision making table that affects our present and our future.
Accountability and consequences cannot be skipped for the illusion of unity. As a African American woman waiting on 40 acres and a mule on stolen land, I understand the complexities of responsibility and repair with those Indigenous to Turtle Island. Below are three time periods that we shine a light during the Uprooting Qahr performances and discussion guides.
The better we orient to the past, the better positioned we are to confront the present and envision a future where all living beings can thrive.
They Stole Farmers, Healers, and World Builders: Transatlantic Slave Trade
EJI’s report examines the economic legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which created generational wealth for Europeans and white Americans and introduced a racial hierarchy that continues to haunt our nation.
Scultpure of Enslaved Africans at the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama.Between 1501 and 1867, nearly 13 million African people were kidnapped, forced onto European and American ships, and trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean to be enslaved, abused, and forever separated from their homes, families, and cultures. Coastal communities across the U.S. were permanently shaped by the trafficking of African people. New England, Boston, New York City, the Mid-Atlantic, Virginia, Richmond, the Carolinas, Charleston, Savannah, the Deep South, and New Orleans had local economies built around the enslavement of Black people. Few have acknowledged this history.
Learning Library Resource:
Click here to access the Transatlantic Slave Trade report.
Stolen People on Stolen Land: Chattel Slavery in the USA
Beginning in the 16th century, millions of African people were kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas under horrific conditions. Nearly two million people died at sea during the agonizing journey. Over more than two centuries, the enslavement of Black people in the United States created wealth, opportunity, and prosperity for millions of Americans. As American slavery evolved, an elaborate and enduring mythology about the inferiority of Black people was created to legitimate, perpetuate, and defend slavery. This mythology survived slavery’s formal abolition following the Civil War.
Learning Library Resource:
Click here to access the report. Click here to access the Mukuyu Collective blog on In(ter)dependece day where Taishya explores the relationship between African American and those Indigenous to Turtle Island.
Free-ish: Reconstruction in America
EJI’s report, Reconstruction in America, documents nearly 2,000 more confirmed racial terror lynchings of Black people by white mobs in America than previously detailed. The report examines the 12 years following the Civil War when lawlessness and violence perpetrated by white leaders created an American future of racial hierarchy, white supremacy, and Jim Crow laws—an era from which our nation has yet to recover.
Learning Library Resource:
Click here to access the report. Click here to access an animated video that shares the history.
State Sanctioned Terror: Lynching of African Americans, Mexicans, and Indigenous
The lynching of African Americans was terrorism, a widely supported campaign to enforce racial subordination and segregation. Lynching in America documents more than 4400 racial terror lynchings in the United States during the period between Reconstruction and World War II.
Learning Library Resource:
Read the report to learn more about lynching in America. You can also get lesson plans for teaching the report to students.
Black History Spotlight:
Black American West Museum, Denver, Colorado
When Taishya arrived in the American West in 2012, she found a place where Whiteness was centered and very little history and perspectives were shared beyond the settler colonial experience. Graciously, someone invited her to attend an event at the The Black American West Museum and Heritage Center.
Uprooting Qahr: Power, Privilege, and Paperwork has been DEEPLY guided by the many visits and learning opportunities at the museum. The power of being seen, heard, and understood was beyond measure. As the first African American women to serve on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife commission, Taishya was eager to tell the fuller Colorado story. Reclaiming the innovation, resilience, and triumphs of those who were only meant to serve another’s dream.
Taishya invites us all to re-root in the Black experiences of the American West. The museum is dedicated to educating, promoting, and preserving the cultural role African Americans played in the Old West. Examine artifacts, listen to stories, and learn how African Americans lived, worked, and aided in the expansion of America’s western region.
Learning Library Resources:
Click here to learn more and schedule your visit!
