By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large

“Black History is Everyday,” posted poet Lisa A. Muhammad on social media.
Sean M. Brennan-Byrd doubled down, “I am Black every month, but this month I’m Blackity Black Black.”
In fact, Delvin Lawson of The Pan African Movement stated, “Always remember that’ Black History Month’ is actually Indigenous history.”

Morgan State University Research Professor Ray Winbush posted in red, black, and green writing, “Friendly reminder: Black History month starts on January 1st and ends December 31st.”
Black history–past as in yesterday and before, present, as in today, and creation as in right now. It is fluid.
Writing about, preserving, and representing said past and recent history is one of the main functions of Black journalists.

“With the press under censorship, subject to harassment and arrest, it shows that the Black press is indeed soldiers without swords,” poet and author Marc W. Polite told Our Time Press.
These are crucial times. The government is expanding regulations while reducing social safeguards.
Daily, there are protests against militarized police and federal law enforcement agents in several states.
This, as essential worker nurses spend a third of a week on picket lines in below-freezing temperatures, demanding better pay, a tighter ratio, and security for staff and patients.

“At a time when Black history and Black people are under attack, [we are] returning to some of the lessons we have in our recorded experience in the United States,” Polite continued. “This particular February, Black History Month, turns 100. Initially conceptualized by early 20th-century scholar Carter G. Woodson as Black History Week in February 1926, Black History Month is a time of reflection. The achievements of Black History go far beyond the one month that was created to acknowledge our history. The focus of one month is really for the purpose of correcting the record and fighting the erasure of our collective accomplishments.”

Michael Ferguson, son of famed activist Herman Ferguson, told Our Time Press Black History has particular proactive significance, “It started off as a week, and then the shortest month, and I remember as a school, we only heard about people like Marian Anderson and Ralph Bunche, and half a dozen people.

But you didn’t really get a feel for our contributions and what we have been through to get to this point. It should definitely be celebrated every day of the year. Black nationalists celebrate times like African Liberation Day and Black August, some of the slave rebellions, and every other month, there is something.

We should tell our children, and make them aware of the contributions we have made throughout the year, and just what our history is, and take control of it, rather than the larger society telling us when they are going to allow us to celebrate and commemorate our people.”

A former assistant principal, Herman Ferguson was the Chairman of Education in Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity. He was also the Minister of Education, and a lieutenant colonel in the Guyana Defense Force, after his 19 years residing in Guyana, after his conviction for his grassroots activism in the U.S. Yet, he was encouraged to rejoin the community-building in New York by fellow activists Abubadika Sonny Carson and Elombe Brath.

Following his father as a member of the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, Ferguson added, “My Dad–like the name of his book, ‘The Unlikely Warrior,’ was a revolutionary Black nationalist who was in the liberation struggle, and a devotee of Malcolm X. He was co-chair of the Jericho Movement. He furthered Malcolm’s teachings that we have to control the politics, the economics, and the culture in our communities.”

Black History Month happenings.
With culture-as-a-weapon sentiment, on Eastern Parkway, Saturday, February 7th, 2026, the Brooklyn Museum is launching its First Saturday: Imitate No One exhibition, paying “homage to the innovators—those fearless artists who re-envision tradition while building community along the way.”
Entitled after the late poet Jayne Cortez’s rallying cry to “imitate no one,” on display will be legendary Malian photographer Seydou Keita’s ‘A Tactile Lens’ exhibition.

On Friday, February 20, the Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn-based Asase Yaa Cultural Arts Foundation will kick off its third annual Rhythms & Movements Festival at the BRIC Ballroom, a 9-day celebration of its 25th Anniversary.
With its “Educate, Enrich, and Entertain” mission, ‘An Artivist Experience’ will feature artists like Kweku Sumbry, Immanuel Wilkins, and Joel Ross. Asase Yaa said the concert will be immediately followed by a moderated in-depth conversation with the artists hosted by Chief Ayanda Clarke, to “discuss the intersection of African music, activism, and revolution in today’s world.”

On Wednesday, 4th February, the office of State Assemblymember Stefani Zinerman hosted an Albany to Brooklyn ‘Evening of Black Truth Telling – The Freedom Reading Circle’ district-wide read-aloud session, honoring A Century of Black History Commemorations and defending the right to read, stating, “We read for freedom. We act with purpose.”

In commemoration of Black History Month and the 27th anniversary of the tragic shooting of Amadou Diallo, The People’s Film Festival has announced the screening of “365 Days of Marching: The Amadou Diallo Story,” directed by filmmaker Veronica Keitt.

This screening will take place on Friday, February 13, 2026, at Manhattan Neighborhood Network studios. Keitt said, “The film recounts the heartbreaking story of Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea who was tragically gunned down in a hail of 41 bullets by four New York City police officers on February 4, 1999. His death became a rallying cry for justice, sparking a year-long movement of marches and protests against racial profiling and police misconduct.”

“At a time of organized reaction and backlash coming from the highest office in the land against Black Americans, this is important to understand,” determined Marc Polite. “When you have armed bodies of men acting at the behest of the current president of the United States, we realize that they are channeling the spirits of slave catchers in their approach to terrorizing people.”

Polite declared, “As many scholars have stated, Black History is American history. Woodson, in his book ‘The Mis-Education of the Negro,’ cautions us against making the observation of our history focused solely on the gaze of others outside our community.

Woodson once wrote: ‘History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves, and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.’”

When Brooklyn manages to dig itself out of these frigid and grimy ice block streets, grassroot activists told Our Time Press that there’s a whole spring and summer of building, protesting, politicking, celebratory cultural and economic reinforcement–from organized rallies, to Dance Africa, African Liberation Day/Month, the International African Arts Festival, the West Indian American Day Carnival, Juneteenth, African American Day Parade, African Day Parade, Black Solidarity, day and then there is the fall and winter traditional observations too.