On August 25, 1619, a ship carrying enslaved people from Africa arrived in Virginia. For nearly 250 years, Black men and women were forced to work on the land without pay. Once slavery in the United States was banned in 1865, African Americans continued to work in many ways — shaping society and bringing wealth to the nation. This year’s Black History Month is a time to remember the impact of all of their work. The theme for 2025 is “African Americans and Labor.”
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) creates the theme for Black History Month each year. A teacher named Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the group in 1915. Then he launched “Negro History Week” in February 1926 to ensure that people could learn about the contributions of Black Americans. The Black heritage event grew throughout the 1900s to become “Black History Month” in 1976.
According to the ASALH, “work is at the very center of much of Black history and culture.” And the group described the different ways that Black Americans have worked in the United States. That includes labor that is “free and unfree, skilled and unskilled, vocational and voluntary.” The ASALH listed jobs in the military, in the government, at private companies, and in public service. Yet the group said African American labor also includes “community building” — such as fighting for social justice or creating churches and other communication organizations.
Zebulon Miletsky is a professor of African American Studies and History at Stony Brook University — and he works with ASALH. He said the history of Black labor includes African Americans during the period of slavery. “It was labor,” he explained, “but it’s still labor.” Added Miletsky: “The work we do with our hands and our bodies — all labor — has importance.”
After slavery was banned, millions of African Americans continued to work on farms. Black women often worked as caretakers and to support new mothers. And many African Americans began working as teachers and in industry. They also played a vital role working for the U.S. military.
Nearly 200,000 Black men served as Union troops during the U.S. Civil War. And more than 1 million Black men and women served the United States during World War II, from 1941 to 1945. African Americans fought on the front lines of the battlefield, flew fighter planes, and worked — as welders and in many other roles — to build equipment for the war.
However, Miletsky explained that the workplace was not always fair to Black workers. “A lot of the labor unions, historically, African Americans,” he explained. “That forced a lot of Black laborers to start to organize their own unions.” Labor leaders like A. Philip Randolph had to step up to help Black workers fight against discrimination to get fair treatment (and higher paying jobs) during the 1900s.
Black workers continue to fight for fair labor laws today. Chris Smalls was working for Amazon when he organized a protest on March 30, 2020. Working in a facility in Staten Island, New York, Smalls said the company was not treating its workers safely. He founded the Congress of Essential Workers in 2021 and then led the first labor victory against Amazon in the United States in 2022.
Miletsky told News-O-Matic that “labor” means much more than a job. As he explained: “What a lot of people don’t realize when you say the word ‘labor’ that you’re talking about people’s homes — their lives, their families, their ability to put food on the table.” And Miletsky added: “One job makes a huge difference to somebody.”
African Americans continue to play a very important role in the workplace of the United States. Yet Miletsky said the hard work for equity in the country is not over. As he said, “We have a fight ahead of us.”
By Russell Kahn (Russ)
Updated January 31, 2025, 5:00 P.M. (ET)
