Black History Month 2022 (2024)

Ray Billingsley

For decades, cartoonist Ray Billingsley has depicted Black family life in 'Curtis'

February 27, 2022 • He got past obstacles in the industry to bring a mostly Black cast of characters to newspapers and digital platforms across the country.

GHI/Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Why does Black History Month matter?

February 26, 2022 • There is an ongoing debate as to whether U.S. history segregates Black history in February or whether Black History Month brings forward necessary untold stories.

Laylah Amatullah Barrayn

Reflecting on the power of affirmations for Black History Month

February 26, 2022 • Daily affirmations can highlight traits we already possess or summon who or what we aspire to be. Photographer Laylah Amatullah Barrayn says they're an important part of a larger self-care routine.

Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Niecy Nash and Jessica Betts are the 1st same-sex couple on the cover of Essence

February 25, 2022 • In the interview with the magazine, they opened up about their love story and how their relationship blossomed into marriage. The duo tied the knot in 2020.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Trayvon, ten years later

February 25, 2022 • Before George Floyd and Michael Brown, there was Trayvon Martin. And this weekend marks ten years since the watershed moment that planted the seed for the Black Lives Matter movement we know today. A decade later, Sam is joined by Nailah Summers-Polite, co-director of the Dream Defenders, and Georgetown law professor, Paul Butler to discuss their feelings ten years ago and how their activism has evolved along with the movement.

Shirley Caesar

Pastor Shirley Caesar: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

February 25, 2022 • The "First Lady of Gospel Music" delivers a sampling of her vast music ministry in this Tiny Desk home Concert.

Simon & Schuster

There Are No Utopias

February 24, 2022 • It may seem bleak, but Robin D.G Kelley's view of the world says there is no promise of liberation, only struggle. Kelley has spent his career bringing to life the stories of the Black labor organizers and anti-capitalists who are often left out of history books, from radical farmers in the South to Black unions during the Gilded Age. And he's come to a provocative conclusion: that the secret to capitalism's survival is racism. His scholarship uses historical connections between race and labor to directly challenge the premise that there can be any justice within America's current economic system — and to ask what that means for the people who seek it. This week on Throughline, a view of Black history you don't often hear in February.

Penguin Young Readers

'Born on the Water' gives Black children in America their origin story

February 24, 2022 • Authors Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson discuss the importance of teaching young people about the history of slavery and racism in America with honesty and respect.

National African American History Museum curator on George Floyd protest photo

February 23, 2022 • Aaron Bryant curates photography at the National Museum of African American History and Culture Smithsonian's collection. He spoke with NPR about the collection and a 2020 photo he believes is iconic.

Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

February 23, 2022 • From a backstage corner of a concert hall in Austin, Texas, the Godmother of Soul performs hits from across the many chapters of her fabulous career.

Boris SV/Getty Images

Do You See What I See?

February 23, 2022 • Everyone sees the world differently. Exactly which colors you see and which of your eyes is doing more work than the other as you read this text is different for everyone. Also different? Our blind spots – both physical and social. As we continue celebrating Black History Month, today we're featuring Exploratorium Staff Physicist Educator Desiré Whitmore. She shines a light on human eyesight – how it affects perception and how understanding another person's view of the world can offer us a fuller, better picture of life.

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from the Liljenquist Family Collection

A picture of U.S. democracy in action: Black people at work, rest and play

February 22, 2022 • A mantra for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture is to explore American history through an African American lens.

Photo of entertainer Josephine Baker is one to appreciate at the Smithsonian

February 22, 2022 • Curator Aaron Bryant recently spoke to NPR about some favorite Black photographic subjects in the Smithsonian's collection. He remembers a photo of Josephine Baker in France from the 1920s.

Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images

1 in 10 Black people in the U.S. are migrants. Here's what's driving that shift

February 20, 2022 • The breadth of what it means to be a Black American is widening, according to new analysis of the latest migration statistics.

Therrious Davis for NPR

Lawmakers want to ban discomfort in school. But Black history isn't always comfortable

February 19, 2022 • Scores of state bills aim to limit what schools can teach about race, politics, American history and more. For some educators, that's made teaching about Black History Month especially fraught.

Russ Rowland/Courtesy of Heartbeat Opera

Prison choirs sing in a reboot of Beethoven's opera about unjust incarceration

February 19, 2022 • A New York City opera company created an updated version of Fidelio for the Black Lives Matter era. The performance features singers who are incarcerated in real life.

Justin Hardiman

Not their first rodeo: How Black riders are reclaiming their place in cowboy culture

February 19, 2022 • Black cowboys are often missing in pop culture depictions of cowboy culture. In reality, they have been a big part of cowboy history, as some estimates suggest as many as 1 in 4 cowboys were Black.

Getty Images/Getty Images

Black Voices in American Music: The Playlist

February 19, 2022 • Some of the first truly American music was created by Black voices. In this playlist, pianist Lara Downes offers a broad range of songs that speak to the irrepressible, irresistible sound of hope.

Courtesy of David Harris/National Geographic

'Segregated Skies' tells the story of the first Black pilot for a commercial airline

February 18, 2022 • When American Airlines hired David Harris in 1964, he became the first African American pilot to fly for a commercial airline. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cottman's Segregated Skies tells his story.

Mary O. Burnette

A granddaughter passes on the legacy of 'Granny Hayden,' a midwife born into slavery

February 18, 2022 • "If somebody needed help — Granny was going. Black and whites alike, it made no difference to her," Mary Othella Burnette says of her late grandmother, a second-generation midwife in Black Appalachia.

Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images

The Good and the Bad of TV Forensics

February 18, 2022 • Raychelle Burks is a forensic chemist and an associate professor at American University. She's also a big fan of murder mysteries. Today, we talk pop culture forensics with Raychelle and what signs to look for to know whether or not a tv crime show is getting the science right. (ENCORE)

Docuseries offers a more complete history of Lincoln's journey to end slavery

February 17, 2022 • NPR's Leila Fadel talks to directors Jacqueline Olive and Barak Goodman about the Apple TV+ docuseries, Lincoln's Dilemma, and how the fight for emancipation was larger than one man.