Dreaming Forward: Black History Today 2026
/Black History Today, created by Marcus Harden in honor of Black History Month, pays tribute to the living legacy of Black history in our community and beyond and recognizes the people among us who are boldly shaping the future.
“Purpose is an essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history.”
By Marcus Harden
Black History Today was never meant to be loud.
It was meant to be honest.
But honesty, in this moment, requires volume. (And occasionally a mic check.)
What began as a personal practice of writing to remember, writing to honor, writing to make sense of who we are and how we arrived here, has grown into something I could not have fully imagined.
Last year, Black History Today became an exhibit at the Northwest African American Museum. That milestone carries pride, yes, but it also carries weight. Because we are living in a time when Black contribution is not just misunderstood, but actively challenged. Sanitized. Minimized. Systemically erased.
There are days when that reality feels heavy. Days when the darkness feels intentional and hope feels fragile.
(And days when you ask yourself, “Is it just me, or…?”)
This year, clarity came for me thousands of miles from home.
Standing in Ghana at the Diaspora District Conference, I was surrounded by lineage made visible: elders, builders, culture keepers, and young people carrying the same questions we carry here, just spoken in different accents and rhythms. I felt the presence of those who came before us not as history, but as instruction.
It became impossible to ignore the truth: we are not disconnected chapters. We are part of a living, breathing continuum. What we carry was handed to us across oceans, across generations, across sacrifice.
That experience sharpened my understanding of purpose, and my responsibility to speak. Especially because standing in Seattle, or Atlanta, or D.C., or…wherever the flight lands, can sometimes feel exactly the same.
I’ll be honest: writing about young people has always been the hardest part for me. Not because I doubt them, but because I love them deeply. There is a sacred responsibility that comes with naming a generation inheriting both extraordinary brilliance and extraordinary resistance. For a long time, the fear — of getting it wrong, of not protecting them enough — kept me quieter than I wanted to be.
(Which, if you know me, is saying something.)
This year required courage.
Courage to insist that Black history is not optional, not negotiable, and not confined to the past.
Black History Today is not a response to erasure, it is a refusal of it. It is a declaration that when others attempt to dim the light, we become brighter. When stories are threatened, we tell them louder. When our presence is questioned, we live more boldly.
This work is not about lists or accolades. This is about lineage. About the baton being passed with intention. About elders who paved the road, steadying their hands as they place history into ours. And about us sprinting forward, eyes ahead, while they intentionally trail behind, making sure we don’t drop what they carried for so long.
Because the truth is this: we do not move alone. We are guided. We are watched over. We are accountable.
This year’s series introduces new features and a sharper focus, but the heart remains unchanged. We honor elders not as memory, but as living testimony. We uplift young people not as “next,” but as now. And we remind ourselves, and the world, that history is not something done to us.
We ourselves are the light. We create the hope.
And in times like these, we must be just as audacious in telling our stories as those who would try to erase them.
We make history, for every living spirit, by Black people, today and every day henceforth. Because we are the original A.I.
Awareness & Intention.
Awareness is remembering who you are
before the world tries to define you.
Intention is deciding, every day,
how you will move through it.
This is how history stays human.
This is how lineage becomes action.
This is why we have been, are, and will always be
BLACK HISTORY. TODAY.
Upendo,
MLH
Original artwork created by Devin Chicras for the South Seattle Emerald.
