While Black History Month, also known as African American History Month, originated in the United States, it’s grown globally and is now marked in Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands and the U.K. Its roots trace back to a 1915 week-long celebration. Carter G. Woodson, a Harvard-trained historian, and the prominent minister Jesse E. Moorland, together founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), an organization dedicated to research and to promoting achievements by Black Americans and other people of African descent. They are credited with starting Black History Week.

Fast–or slow–forward to February 1976, when President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month. He called for us to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” And, in 2017, then-Senator Kamala Harris referenced Black History Month as “a moment in time to celebrate the accomplishments and the contributions that Black people in this country have made not only as Americans and to their fellow Americans, but contributions that have had international and global impact.”

In the spirit of honoring accomplishments and contributions, and with CommunicationsContentConnections in mind, of course, let’s consider Black men and women who have, or continue to gift us with great communications and inspired content. Here is my list of people of color, clearly people of note, who created and/or delivered various types of communications across various times and places. Drawn from random reflections and a touch of search, it’s certainly not an exhaustive or comprehensive assembly, nor meticulously organized. Yet, there is a method to categorization.

Communicators and Content Makers: Some I Wish I Could Have Known

The first group, listed in no particular order ranges from authors to activists, politicians to poets, journalists to entrepreneurs, includes: Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglas, William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, Maya Angelou, Ed Bradley, Carl Rowan, Max Robinson, Madame C.J. Walker, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gwen Ifill, Toni Morrison, John Lewis and Langston Hughes. Read Hughes’ “I, Too,” also known as “I, Too, Sing America,” again. And again. Times have not changed enough.

Communicators and Content Makers: Some I’ve Met, Heard, Known

Another seemingly random grouping–these are individuals I’ve had the honor and privilege to meet and learn from, either through professional or leisure pursuits: Donna Brazile, Daymond John, Morgan Freeman, Carla Hall, Marcus Samuelson.

Communications and Content Makers: Some I Still Want to See, Meet, Know

This category made for the longest list, but I attempted—unsuccessfully–to cull it down to the vital few. Here we have: Anita Hill, Elizabeth Alexander, April Ryan, Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington, Kamala Harris, Valerie Jarrett, Van Jones, Alice Walker, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, and…wait for it…Amanda Gorman, the first National Youth Poet Laureate.

Interviewed recently by Michelle Obama for Time Magazine, Gorman was asked what unity means to her. She answered, “Unity that actually moves us toward the future means that we accept our differences—we embrace them, and we lean into that diversity. It’s not linking arms without questioning what we’re linking arms for. It’s unity with purpose.” In another section of the interview, she noted a purpose to her communications, her content: “Poetry and language are often at the heartbeat of movements for change.”

I know I have not done justice here to honor the many great Black men and women communicators the world over. Their contributions cannot be contained in a brief commentary, in a moment or during one month. Their character, courage and convictions are to be ever celebrated. And their calls for change, justice and unity heeded.

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