The theme for Black History Month 2025 is African Americans and Labor.
President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976 when he called for the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
According to Scripps News, there has been a theme for Black History Month since its origins when historian Carter G. Woodson started “Negro History Week” in 1926.
Today, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) develops the themes.
“Black people’s work has been transformational throughout the U.S., Africa, and the Diaspora,” according to ASALH. “The 2025 Black History Month theme, ‘African Americans and Labor,’ sets out to highlight and celebrate the potent impact of this work.”
According to ASALH, work is central to much of Black history and
culture, from traditional agricultural labor of enslaved Africans that fed Low Country colonies to debates among Black educators on the importance of vocational training, entrepreneurship in Black communities.“Like religion, social justice movements, and education, studying African Americans’ labor and labor struggles are important organizing foci for new interpretations and reinterpretations of the Black past, present, and future,” says ASALH. “Such new considerations and reconsiderations are even more significant as the historical forces of racial oppression gather new and renewed strength in the 21st century.”
Black History Month 2025 comes at a time when diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, especially in the workforce, come under attack from the new administration. In some of his first priorities in his second term, President Donald Trump has signed various executive orders to eliminate DEI programs from private companies with contracts with the federal government. As a result, companies such as Target, Walmart, and Lowe’s have rolled back their DEI initiatives.
In 2024, the theme was African Americans and the Arts. In 2023, the theme was Black Resistance.
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