It is important not just that black history is remembered but how it is remembered, argues Shabbir Lakha 

In the year that we are witnessing an ongoing genocide and one of the greatest expressions of racist violence in our lifetimes, there is an added significance to Black History Month. 

There has been some attempt by liberals in the US to decouple the Palestinian struggle and black struggles, but, in reality, the fight against racism in the West has always identified with and been connected to the struggles of the colonised against imperialism globally. Reasserting this history is what this month should be all about. 

While we should of course reject the idea that black history should be relegated to a single month or that it is separate from working-class history, Black History Month offers an opportunity to focus on the individuals, events and ideas that shaped the struggle in the past so that we can advance the struggle today. 

It is therefore important not only that black history is remembered, but how it is remembered. Mainstream commemorations of black history have tended to focus on cultural icons and, where revolutionary figures are discussed, they are robbed of their radicalism. The moments of great struggle are presented as ‘look how far we’ve come’, the victories as generous concessions from the ruling class. 

Rather, the violence and structural discrimination that black people still face and the West’s imperialist stranglehold on the world that is producing the mass killings of people in Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan and Congo, show us how far there still is to go. Black history has shown that it’s only when people mobilise that change becomes possible. 

We must break with the mainstream narrative and remember, for example, that although Abraham Lincoln represented a move to ending slavery from above, there was a movement for emancipation from below, not least in the form of slave revolts, that played a decisive role in bringing the end of slavery. The politics of Martin Luther King Jr toward the end of his life, when he championed the anti-imperialist struggle against the Vietnam War and became avowedly anti-capitalist, is downplayed and only his less radical earlier years are remembered. 

We must also avoid the danger that even the wider movement lapses into an uncritical celebration of every aspect of black history and glosses over the ideological and strategic debates that emerged. There are different traditions within the black struggle with some arguing for separatism and viewing racism as wholly rooted in identity, while others argued for building a movement along class lines; some saw legal remedies and political reforms as the goal, others saw an irreformable system that had to be confronted and dismantled. 

Out of these debates, the struggle in the late 60s and 70s embraced militancy, moved in an anti-systemic direction and organised with other minorities and white working-class people. These debates that shaped the movement then are often the same debates the movement is grappling with today. The lessons from the history of the black struggle, its successes and its mistakes, its leaders, agitators, and organisers, are there to inform the movement today. 

The Black Lives Matter movement following the murder of George Floyd became the biggest protest movement in US history with an estimated 26 million Americans taking to the streets. It became a global expression of anti-racist struggles in almost every country, and firmly tied itself to solidarity with Palestine. 

Today’s global Palestine solidarity movement has built on the radicalised consciousness of huge swathes of the populations in the West and strengthened a class-based solidarity in the common fight against racism and imperialism. 

The resilience of the movement in the face of state repression echoes the long march of black history and liberation struggles. Our movement has significantly altered the political landscape and caused a crisis for the ruling class. They are vulnerable, and they know it. That is why they are determined to celebrate black history but sanitise its revolutionary aspects in an attempt to dampen the growing militancy. 

We cannot let them get away with this revision of history or allow them to set the parameters of acceptable discourse. We must keep black history alive and use it to learn, and to inspire, and to be the basis for building a stronger movement.