IMPORTANT MOMENTS IN BLACK RESISTANCE HISTORY IN FEBRUARY

This month’s black resistence history series is particularly special as it coincides with what the black world refers to as ‘Black History Month’.

February this year marks 97 years since the inception of Black History Month. Black History Month was the initiative of the black thinker, teacher, historian and scholar, Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson author of the classic, The Mis-education of the Negro.

Originally launched as ‘Negro History Week’ in 1929, in the USA. In 1970, it morphed into Black History Month.

Speaking at the launch of this celebration, Dr Woodson stated that “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated…”

At inception, Black History Month was intended to celebrate the contribution of Black people to human civilisation and also mark the birthday of black icons such as Fredrick Douglass and others.

Here are a few important blackaversaries we must not forget to remember:

1 February marks the 125th anniversary of the birthday of the poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist Langston Hughes in 1901. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called Jazz Poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

1 February also marks the 52nd anniversary of the assassination (through parcel bomb) of the iconic Black Consciousness Movement leader, Onkgopotse Abram Tiro, in Botswana in 1974.

3 February marks the 57th anniversary of the assassination (also through a parcel bomb) of the founding leader of FRELIMO, Dr Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane, in Tanzania in 1969.

4 February marks the 27th anniversary of the murder of Brother Amadou Diallo, in AmeriKKKa. On February 4, 1999, 23-year-old Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times (19 bullets struck him) by four New York City Police officers. He was unarmed.

4 February also marks the 1st anniversary of the passing of Dr Neely Fuller Jr on 4 February, 2025. He was an influential critical thinker, author, and activist best known for developing a comprehensive logical framework to analyse and dismantle systemic racism, which he defined as White Supremacy. 

6 February marks the 81st anniversary of the birth of the global reggae icon and revolutionary, Robert Nesta Marley aka Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1945

18 February marks the 69th anniversary since of the execution of the Kenya Land and Freedom Movement (Mau Mau), leader and general, Dedan Kimathi by the British colonial government in Kenya in 1957.

21 February marks the 61st anniversary of the assassination of one of the most iconic Black figures, Omowale El-Hajj Malik Shabazz Malcolm X, in 1965.

26 February marks the 141st anniversary of the adoption of the General Act of the Berlin Conference that was signed on February 26, 1885, by 14 powers (led by Germany, Britain, France, and Portugal) to formalise the “Scramble for Africa”. It established “effective occupation” as the rule for colonisation, allowing nations to claim territory only if they actively controlled it. 

27 February marks the 48th anniversary of the passing of the Founding President of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, Mangaliso Sobukwe, in Ga-Kgosi Galeshewe in 1978.