Each February, National Black History Month serves as both a celebration and a powerful reminder that Black history is American history, Black culture is American culture, and Black histories are essential to America’s continuing history: our failures, our struggles, our progress, and our aspirations. Shining a light on black history today is as important to understanding ourselves and strengthening ourselves as a nation as it has ever been. That is why it is essential that we take the time to celebrate the immeasurable contributions of African Americans, honor the legacies and achievements of past generations, reckon with centuries of injustice, and confront those injustices that still fester today.
Our Nation was founded on one idea: that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated with equal dignity throughout our lives. It is a promise that we have never fully fulfilled, but from which we have never walked away. The long shadows of slavery, Jim Crow and the Red Line, and the plague of systemic racism that still plagues our nation today, prevent America from achieving its full promise and potential. But by facing those tragedies openly and honestly and working together as one people to fulfill America’s promise of fairness and dignity for all, we become a stronger nation, a more perfect version of ourselves.
Over the generations, countless black Americans have shown deep moral courage and resilience to help improve our nation. Today, African Americans are leading industries and movements for change, serving our communities and our nation at every level, and advancing every field in every arena, including the arts and sciences, business and law, health and education, and many more. Facing wounds and obstacles older than our own Nation, African Americans can be seen in every part of our society today, strengthening and uplifting all of America.
Vice President Harris and I are deeply committed to advancing equity, racial justice, and opportunity for African Americans as we continue to strive to realize America’s founding promise. That started with building a federal government that looks like America: including the first black Secretary of Defense, the first black woman to head the Office of Management and Budget, the first black man to head the Environmental Protection Agency, the first black woman to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development in more than 40 years, the first black chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, a black ambassador representing the United States at the United Nations, and the first black vice president and of South Asia in our history. We are proud to appoint accomplished African Americans to a wide range of roles in our Administration. I am even more proud that we have already nominated eight black women to serve as federal appellate judges, equaling in just 1 year the total number of black women who have ever served on federal appellate courts.
My administration has worked hard to reverse decades of underinvestment in Black communities, schools, and businesses. Both the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act are making historic investments in black America, from gun shots of vaccines to checks in families’ pockets and tax cuts for working families with children to a historic investment of $ 5.8 billion and support for historically black colleges. and Universities. And in my first year in office, the American Rescue Plan provided the full Child Tax Credit to low-income families of more than 26 million children, who are disproportionately black, and put us on the path to reducing poverty. half black child
As the Infrastructure Law continues to be implemented, we will build on that progress. Lead service lines that have contaminated the water in too many homes and schools in black communities will be removed and replaced. We will bring high speed internet to every community so that no black family is left behind in the 21st century economy. Historic investments in public transportation will help more people in more neighborhoods get to where good jobs really are quickly and safely. We will reconnect black neighborhoods cut off from opportunity by roads that were built to bypass them. Long-standing environmental injustices that have hit Black communities hardest will be remedied. We will provide significant investments in Black entrepreneurs and small businesses, including making the Minority Business Development Agency permanent and seeding it with a record $110 million in new resources to help level the playing field for Black businesses.
But this is just the beginning. To fulfill the promise of America for all, we will work tirelessly in the coming year to deliver on my Build Back Better agenda, reducing the costs families face in child care, housing, education, health care, prescription drugs and much more. We will continue to fight the COVID-19 pandemic with equity at the core of our response. We will not rest until we have protected the foundation of our democracy: the sacred right to vote. And we will fight to continue dismantling all those structural inequalities that have served as barriers for Black families for generations.
As we celebrate National Black History Month, let us recommit to achieving that founding promise. Let’s keep fighting for the fairness, opportunity, and dignity to which all Black Americans are owed in equal measure. Let’s get on with the job of building an America that is, in the beautiful words of poet Amanda Gorman, “Bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.“
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim February 2022 as the National Black History Month. . I call on public officials, educators, librarians, and all the people of the United States to celebrate this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I hereby sign this thirty-first day of January in the year of Our Lord two thousand and twenty-two, and the two hundred and forty-sixth of the Independence of the United States of America.
JOSE R. BIDEN JR.
www.whitehouse.gov
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism