Black History Month 2023 (2024)

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How Black resistance has been depicted in films over the years

March 2, 2023 • From Something Good — Negro Kiss to Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Black cinema has long served as a form of resistance.

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Omah Lay: Tiny Desk Concert

February 28, 2023 • The singer and songwriter made a special trip from Nigeria to the Tiny Desk for a performance of his Afro-fusion hits.

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Zulu's soul-sampling powerviolence shifts the pit toward love

February 27, 2023 • Meaty riffs, disembodied screams and... Curtis Mayfield? Anaiah Lei carefully curates samples to acknowledge past freedom fighters and provide windows of hope.

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Ab-Soul: Tiny Desk Concert

February 23, 2023 • Ab-Soul's career is a prime example of how rap has grown over the past 50 years. For his Tiny Desk set, he hand-picked a live band and gave a display of raw honesty and next-level lyricism.

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What is life? For scientists, asking is easier than answering

February 23, 2023 • In this Back To School episode we consider the "List of Life": the criteria that define what it is to be a living thing. Some are easy calls: A kitten is alive. A grain of salt is not. But what about the tricky cases, like a virus? Or, more importantly, what about futuristic android robots? As part of our Black History Month celebration, developmental biologist Crystal Rogers and scientist-in-residence Regina G. Barber dig into what makes something alive, and wade into a Star-Trek-themed debate.

Courtesy of Craig Woodson

1 side owned slaves. The other side started Black History Month. How a family heals

February 19, 2023 • In the U.S., what does it mean when a white family and a Black family share a last name — and one of their ancestors is a pioneer of Black history? How Black and white Woodsons became one family.

Photo: Bob Boilen/NPR

Theo Croker: Tiny Desk Concert

February 17, 2023 • The trumpeter brings his unmistakably chill attitude and determination to expand the sound of jazz to this stripped-down Tiny Desk set.

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Fousheé: Tiny Desk Concert

February 15, 2023 • Britanny Fousheé is not an artist who can be boxed in. In her Tiny Desk set, she flexes her eclectic artistry and vocal — and emotional — range.

Courtesy of Stax Records and Craft Recordings

50 years later, the celebrations and contradictions of 'Wattstax' still resonate

February 15, 2023 • The documentary returns to theaters this month alongside the release of a new box set. It's a chance to consider what it captures (and doesn't) about music, race and justice in the 1970s and today.

Joshua Burrow/Kimani Toussaint

COVID-19 made pulse oximeters ubiquitous. Engineers are fixing their racial bias

February 13, 2023 • During the COVID-19 pandemic, one measurement became more important than almost any other: blood oxygen saturation. It was the one concrete number that doctors could use to judge how severe a case of COVID-19 was and know whether to admit people into the hospital and provide them with supplemental oxygen. But pulse oximeters, the device most commonly used to measure blood oxygen levels, don't work as well for patients of color. Kimani Toussaint, a physicist at Brown University, is leading a group trying to make a better, more equitable alternative a reality.

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Lee Fields: Tiny Desk Concert

February 10, 2023 • NPR Music's Tiny Desk series continues a celebration of Black History Month with this set from Lee Fields.

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How Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers changed the civil rights movement

Fresh Air

February 8, 2023 • Journalist Mark Whitaker says that much of what's happening in American race relations today traces back to 1966, the year the Black Panthers were formed. His new book is Saying It Loud.

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What physical blind spots can teach us about social blind spots

February 6, 2023 • 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.

Miami Police Department

A Black History Month-themed police car in Miami draws criticism

February 4, 2023 • Some community members describe the cruiser as tone deaf and ill-timed, given tensions with police around the country. Miami police said they stand by the decision to unveil the special design.

Hanover Square Press

'Black on Black' celebrates Black culture while exploring history and racial tension

February 2, 2023 • Daniel Black's essays call for an overhaul of the U.S. criminal justice system, of the Black church, of the way Black people see themselves, and of the country itself — and do so with authority

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The Real Black Panthers (2021)

February 2, 2023 • In 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover said the Black Panther Party "without question, represents the greatest threat to the internal security of the country." And with that declaration he used United States federal law enforcement to wage war on the group. But why did Hoover's FBI target the Black Panther Party more severely than any other Black power organization? Historian Donna Murch says the answer lies in the Panthers' political agenda: not their brash, gun-toting public image, but in their capacity to organize across racial and class lines. It was a strategy that challenged the very foundations of American society. And it was working.

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College Board's revised AP African American studies course draws new criticism

February 1, 2023 • The organization released the new curriculum for the Advanced Placement course after Florida rejected the pilot. The revisions removed units on Black feminist literary thought and Black Lives Matter.

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Lady Wray: Tiny Desk Concert

February 1, 2023 • NPR Music's Tiny Desk series kicks off a celebration of Black History Month with this stunning performance from Lady Wray.

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The ancient night sky and the earliest astronomers

February 1, 2023 • Moiya McTier says the night sky has been fueling humans' stories about the universe for a very long time, and informing how they explain the natural world. In fact, Moiya sees astronomy and folklore as two sides of the same coin.