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 2025 Black History Month theme, “African Americans and Labor,” sets out to highlight and celebrate the potent impact of this work.Considering Black people’s work through the widest perspectives provides versatile and insightful platforms for examining Black life and culture through time and space. In this instance, the notion of work constitutes compensated labor in factories, the military, government agencies, office buildings, public service, and private homes. But it also includes the community building of social justice activists, voluntary workers serving others, and institution building in churches, community groups, and social clubs and organizations. In each of these instances, the work Black people do and have done have been instrumental in shaping the lives, cultures, and histories of Black people and the societies in which they live. Understanding Black labor and its impact in all these multivariate settings is integral to understanding Black people and their histories, lives, and cultures ...
2025 marks the 100-year anniversary of the creation of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids by labor organizer and civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, which was the first Black union to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor. Martin Luther King, Jr incorporated issues outlined by Randolph’s March on Washington Movement such as economic justice into the Poor People’s Campaign, which he established in 1967. For King, it was a priority for Black people to be considered full citizens ...
Click here to read the full description of the ASAHL 2025 theme.
Check out these links to learn more about the study of African Americans' labor and labor struggles across time and spade throughout the U.S. and the diaspora:
- Black Past: African Americans and the Knights of Labor( (1869-1949)
- Chicago Crusader: 5 Black-led labor unions that have paved the way for Black workers’ rights
- International Brotherhood of Teamsters: Civil Rights and the Labor Movement: A Historical Overview
- Library of Congress: A. Philip Randolph, Labor & Civil Rights Activist Born
- National Archives: African Americans and the American Labor Movement
- National Education Association: 5 Black Leaders that Shaped the Labor Movement
- Stanford Social Innovation Review: The Significance of Four Centuries of Black Labor
- University of Maryland: African Americans' Rights -- A House Divided: African American Workers Struggle Against Segregation
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