Cambridge residents have many ways to participate in Black History Month this year, as some local organizations invite the public to join them in recognizing the contributions and experiences of Black Americans in Cambridge and across the country.
“[Black History Month] is a really important part of our history,” said Maria McCauley, director of libraries at the Cambridge Public Library. “We’re really excited to celebrate the various cultures within [the Black community] and we think that bringing ideas, books, food, music are wonderful ways to bring community members together.”
The Cambridge Public Library will hold several events in February, including a “Shakespeare of Harlem” concert presented by Opera on Tap Boston, a Black Cambridge Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in collaboration with the Cambridge Black History Project, and a cooking class with Cambridge native and former Master Chef contestant Malcolm Green.
“We’ve really worked hard to make sure that we are reflective of the diversity of our community and our programs that we present to the Cambridge community,” McCauley said.
Community is a core component of Black History in Action’s programming. Executive director Kris Manjapra said that community is a skill that the Black community has developed and one that is still vital today.
“Assembly is such a deep resource for the Black community,” Manjapra said. “It is through assembly that Black communities in Cambridge and across the Americas have endured and survived so much, have organized together, strengthened bonds together, planned together for the work that needs to be done.”
While Black History in Action works to address displacement and gentrification in the city year-round, Black History Month offers an opportunity to spotlight community in an inclusive way. This month, the group is organizing two events. The first is a panel conversation called “What Happened to the Black Community in Cambridge?” – it’s a collaboration with the Public Library and Cambridge Black History Project that will explore the socioeconomic factors that led to a decrease in Black Cambridge residents. The second is a conversation with public theologian Irene Monroe titled “The Audacity of Hope in These Times.”
“We are both interested in preserving our rich history and we are celebrating the resilience and resourcefulness of the Black community as it continues to move from the past to the future in Cambridge,” Manjapra said.
Black History Month began as a weeklong observance in 1926. Historian and author Carter G. Woodson initiated what was then known as Negro History Week as a way to promote, research, and spread information about Black life, history and culture to people all over the world, according to the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). ASALH expanded the week into a month in 1976 — since then, every single U.S. president has recognized February as Black History Month.
President Trump has also recognized this year’s observance, but has simultaneously undermined the preservation of Black history, most recently removing the National Park Service’s slavery exhibition. Community members in Cambridge said that they remain committed to keeping Black history alive.
“It’s very clear that there’s a storyline about preserving the inequalities of the past that has gained a lot of traction and a storyline about clawing back the progress that many generations have contributed to,” Manjapra said. He said efforts to erase the history of racism in the U.S. “is the fiction of a literal minority of people but it’s the minority of people that has a lot of power.”
Paula Paris, vice president of the Cambridge Black History Project, an organization that researches and preserves the history of Black Cantabrigians, said that her community will not stand down.
“We’re just gonna keep doing what we’re doing,” she said. “We can’t control the political climate at the national level… the fact that we continue to collaborate and that there is an appetite for learning new things, uncovering things that have been hidden, and archiving them — it doesn’t affect what we’re doing.”
In addition to its efforts with the Public Library and Black History in Action, Cambridge Black History Project will co-host a social with the Cambridge Public Schools history department, where students can receive bookmarks featuring Black Cantabrigians, and a history cafe called “Seizing Freedom and Creating Community,” which will explore enslavement and Black unity in West Cambridge.
“It’s knowing that Cambridge is not just the home of Ben Affleck but that there have been people, many other people, who have contributed to the history of Cambridge.”
A more comprehensive list of the city’s Black History Month events can be found on Cambridge Day’s events calendar.
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