Greetings Family,
I really hope you’re doing well. The world is on fire, but here we are. It’s February. It’s my birth month. It’s Black History Month, and I’m excited about both while wearing my firefighting gear. This year marks 100 years since Carter G. Woodson founded what we now know as Black History Month.
Carter G. Woodson established Negro History Week in February 1926 during a time when mainstream media and education systems worked overtime to portray Black people as inferior, criminal, lazy, and irrelevant. He understood that if Black people were not taught our own history, others would teach it for us with inaccuracy, belittlement, and omission. He could not have been more correct. In 2026, we are still pushing back against stereotypes and narratives that harm us internally and externally.
Woodson was a staunch literacy advocate. He knew that literacy was a master tool for liberation. In his book, The Mis-Education of the Negro, he stressed the importance of reading with intentionality. He argued that cultural literacy, historical awareness, political education, and a clear understanding of how systems function were necessary for survival, progress, dignity, and self-determination. That truth remains.
Unfortunately, far too many of us don’t recognize that truth because people live under oppression every day without recognizing it. Without accurate and intentional education, a nation that extracts from its people and natural resources, exploits labor, and placates billionaires will have you thinking you got a good deal. You will compare your standing to people living in “sh*thole countries,” thinking you have it made while not realizing the country you reside in is the one that colonized and extracted from the countries you’ve been taught to frown upon.
With only the standard education we are given, we will continue to have Black children grow up to be adults who believe that “Black people are wild and white people are normal,” as a beautiful Black child blurted out at Seatack Recreation Center years ago. He may have forgotten what he said, but his words are seared in my mind as fuel to never stop.
That child didn’t know anything about redlining or so-called urban renewal. He didn’t know the disparities in investment in his community versus the nearby communities of his white peers. He saw the surface. The truth is in a book. The truth is in community-run liberation schools that are nearly non-existent. The truth is the freedom that we don’t prioritize or invest in.
I said in the beginning that the world is burning down around us. People respond to the horrible things that are happening by saying we’re living in unprecedented times. We are not living in unprecedented times. We are watching history repeat itself. We are living in our 1960s, our slave patrol era, our McCarthyism, right now.
Pretending otherwise is a luxury we do not have. This moment requires us to use the tools Carter G. Woodson left us. This moment requires us to understand that justice doesn’t exist without literacy and critical thinking.
Twenty years from now, if you are still here, what will you say you did? Were you waiting on the sidelines for someone else to act?
Or were you a truth-teller?
An educator?
An organizer?
A builder?
A collaborator?
A financial contributor?
Did you offer your skills?
Your expertise?
Your time?
Did you work with your community?
And this is why, in the spirit of Carter G. Woodson, Clever Communities in Action is committed to raising a generation of readers, equipped with knowledge, clarity, and courage. We don’t say “know your history because it’s cute.” We say: Read and learn your history because our health, our safety, our livelihood, and our future depend on it.
Black History Month is now a century old. That’s a milestone that holds the weight of responsibility. We are 100 years into a collective effort of celebrating ourselves and our achievements and educating future generations.
We are 100 years in, and the world is on fire.
Let’s make it count, family.
In Love and Solidarity,
Starr Armstrong
Founder | Clever Communities in Action
