Black History Month provides an important opportunity to reflect on inclusion

Black History Month is dedicated to honoring the contributions of African Americans to society both in the US and worldwide. 

Black History Month provides an important opportunity to reflect on inclusion and forge a future of harmony and belonging for all.

For Black History Month and beyond, it is critical that the voices and achievements of black women in the workplace are celebrated and their visibility elevated. Additionally, Black History Month provides a key opportunity for employers to reinforce and amplify their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Efforts from progressive employers go well beyond one month of course with an ongoing focus on recruiting, retaining and supporting diverse talent.

Inclusive history

“History is power. History is self-determination. Those who have power to exercise self-determination have power to control the writing and promotion of their history. Therefore, celebrating Black history and Black History Month is more than a perfunctory exercise that acknowledges Black people throughout the African Diaspora and Africa. Teaching, researching, and promoting the history of a globally subordinated and subjugated racial group is an innocuous yet profoundly revolutionary act of self-determination,” explains Wendell Nii Laryea Adjetey, Assistant Professor, Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University.

In diversity there is beauty and strength

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity, there is beauty, and there is strength," according to Maya Angelou - so indeed we all have a lot more work to do.

American author Jacqueline Woodson attested: "Diversity is about all of us and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together."

American social worker Mary Parker Follett explained: "Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed."

American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist Audre Lorde reminded: "It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."