28 Days of Black Art!
A special celebration for the 100-year anniversary!
Mark your calendar for the Black Star Reviews 2-year anniversary on March 1st, 2026! Details to follow
At the end of class on Monday, I displayed the image below for my graduate students.
“For me, education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better.” – Carter G. Woodson
In as friendly a tone as I could muster, I asked, “What was Carter G. Woodson’s claim to fame?”
The students blinked at me until one brave soul near the front tentatively raised her hand, “Peanut butter?”
The rest of the class leaned in in suspense.
“Nope!” I said with smile, “I think you’re thinking of George Washington Carver. Mr. Carver didn’t invent peanut butter, but he did use peanuts to created a variety of other products like shampoos and soaps. He was both a farmer and a scientist and his formulations inspired many of products we use today. Thank you for being bold enough to take a guess.”
I turned toward the rest of the class and continued, “Carter G. Woodson is the reason we have Black History Month. At first, it was Negro History Week. He chose a week in February because it coincided with President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The first Negro History Week took place in 1926, which was only 100 years ago. Since then, the celebration has expanded to Black History Month and a series of other heritage months has followed.”
After class I had to take a deep breath. A room full of teachers who don’t know Carter G. Woodson?! I realize that everyone may not be as passionate about Black History as I am and they may not have been collecting facts for as long as I have, but I am often stunned when faced with how little people seem to know about us: Black Americans who have been here all along.
For too many people, Black History is connected only to slavery & emancipation or Jim Crow & the Civil Rights Movement. They don’t know us, they know our fight. All told, we have a decent record in the ring. We’ve overcome — and continue to push back against — slavery, domestic terrorism, segregation, police brutality, indignity and insult, the carceral state, discrimination at school and work, redlining, anti-American accusations and more.
But when I think about being Black, all that stuff — the suffering — is background noise. When I think about being Black, I think about wearing shiny shoes with frilly socks and getting my hair pressed for Easter, about my drawerful of family reunion t-shirts, about halftime shows at HBCU homecomings, about Beyoncé at the Super Bowl, about the Panthers and their afros and the way they re-imagined the beret, about the blues and rock & roll and R&B, about gumbo and jambalaya and black eyed peas and buttery biscuits made from scratch, about the breeze on my scalp when I step out of the braiding salon, about double-dutch and “Rocking Robin”, about having adults in my life who went out of their way to make sure I had Barbie dolls that reminded me of my self, about looking for books by Baldwin and Morrison and Walker and Angelou at the library. When I think about being Black, I think Man, this is a beautiful thing. I have never felt ashamed. I have never wished to be anything else.
When Carter G. Woodson started Negro History Week in 1926, we were only 63 years out from emancipation. In that time, we’d advocated for the establishment of what would become public education as the U.S. knows it, we bought land and farmed it, Black men had the right to vote, we’d elected Black representatives to Congress, we’d begun our Great Migration out of the South, and the New Negro Movement had begun in Harlem (later called the Renaissance). Black people who had been born into slavery could learn to read, marry as they chose, and aspire to upward mobility. We’d come a long way and Woodson was guided by the belief that we would only go further, but we’d need to know our brilliant history to do so.
In 2026, we are only 163 years emancipated. We’ve spent much of the time between 1926 and now re-earning freedoms that we’d already had: the right to vote, equal protection under the law, access to public education and facilities. In more recent years, we’ve seen self-determined representations of Black people in music, television, and film; a Black family ascended to the highest office in the land; we’ve embraced the natural texture of our hair. It hasn’t been a linear path, but we’ve stayed steady forward. And through it all we’ve created beautiful things.
This Black History Month, I’ll be highlighting our creativity: the artwork we’ve made, the plays we’ve written, the institutions we’ve founded, the beauty we’ve contributed to American society. It’s a love offering for the village I’m honored to call my race. I’ll be sharing 28 Days of Black Art, all here in NYC and *mostly* available for free. You can check back here or follow me on social media for daily updates.
This series won’t be a survey of historical artists/artworks, but rather contemporary ones. Because: I am becoming convinced that having knowledge of both what has already happened and what is happening now is essential as we determine what will happen in the future. It is too easy to fall into the false belief that the good work and the trailblazing has already been done, that now is the time to kick up our feet and reap our ancestors’ labors. But we are ancestors-in-the-making! We must labor, in our own ways and in our own time, to ensure there will be more of us to come. We must ensure that Black History continues to be made — that there will be more to know about us in 2126, that our story doesn’t end with President Obama’s election.
Mr. Woodson wrote, “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”
I’d ofter an addendum, “If a race has only history, if it has only slowly-fading traditions and stories, it becomes a past-tense people in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of losing the collective spirit it has long used to survive.
Join me in raising a glass of red drink for Black History Month. Here’s to the last 100 years, the next 100 years, and the urgent moment sandwiched in the middle. Black History is now.
Day 1 • Nick Cave “Each One, Every One, Equal All” • Public Art
@blackstar.reviews Day 1 – Nick Cave – Public Art – Free (like + follow to come back tomorrow!) #blackhistorymonth #blacktiktok #blackstarreviews #freethingstodo #roadto2k
Day 2 • Fitgi St. Louis “Aunties” • Public Art
@blackstar.reviews 28 Days of Black Art – Day 2 – Fitgi Saint-Louis – Public Art – Free (like + follow to come back tomorrow!) #harlemworld🌎 #uptown #blm #blackartist #roadto2kfollowers🎉
Day 3 • 3 Shows at MoMA (Wifredo Lam, Ideas of Africa, Arthur Jafa • Museum
@blackstar.reviews Day 3 – 3 Shows at MoMA (Wifredo Lam, Ideas of Africa, Arthur Jafa) – Museum Exhibitions – FREE on Fridays (like + follow to come back tomorrow!) 🖤🌟 #blackartists #blm #bhm2026 #roadto2kfollowers🎉 #blackstarreviews
Day 4 • ‘Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson’ at The Met • Museum
@blackstar.reviews Day 4 – John Wilson “Witnessing Humanity” – Met Museum – $1 (like + follow to come back tomorrow!) [cw: video contains one scene of harm in art] #blackartists #blm #bhm2026 #roadto2kfollowers🎉 #blackstarreviews
Day 5 • Kehinde Wiley “Go” • Public Art
@blackstar.reviews Day 5 – Kehinde Wiley – Public Art – FREE (like + follow to come back tomorrow! 🙌🏽) #blackhistorymonth #blacktiktok #blowthisup #proudfamily #blackfyp
Day 6 • Billie & Beyond Music Series at The Billie Holiday Theatre • Live Music
@blackstar.reviews Day 6 – Billie & Beyond – Live Music – $25 (like + follow to come back tomorrow!) #livemusic #billieholiday #bedstuy #blackmusicmatters #experimentalmusic
Day 7 • ‘Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens’ at Brooklyn Museum • Museum
@blackstar.reviews Day 7 – Seydou Keita: A Tactile Lens – Brooklyn Museum – $1 (share with a friend you want to take —- like + follow to come back tomorrow!) ✊🏿 #blackhistorymonth #afrobeats #portraitphotography #blackphotographers #roadto2kfollowers🎉
Day 8 • Remembering San Juan Hill (works by Ex Vandals and Nina Chanel Abney) • Public Art
@blackstar.reviews Day 8 – Remembering San Juan Hill (through works by Ex Vandals and Nina Chanel Abney) – Public Art – Free (*PLEASE* share + like + follow to come back tomorrow!) #blackhistorymonth #puertorico🇵🇷 #badbunnypr #superbowl #nycforfree
Day 9 • ‘Syncopated Stages: Black Disruptions to the Great White Way’ • Library Exhibition’
@blackstar.reviews we love an organizational scheme! 🖤🖤 Day 9 – ‘Syncopated Stages’ Exhibition at NYPL – Public Art – Free (like + follow to come back tomorrow!) ✊🏿 #blackhistorymonth #broadway #fyp #freethingstodo #roadto2k
Day 10 • “Wifredo Lam & Company” at Bill Hodges Gallery • Art Gallery
@blackstar.reviews stay inside and see something stunning ✨ Day 10 – Bill Hodges Gallery – Free (please share!) #repost #blackhistorymonth #fyp #gallery #afrocubana
Day 11 • “Got to Be There” Art Exhibition at the Apollo Theater • Art Gallery
@blackstar.reviews *radical honesty* Day 11 – “Got To Be There” at the Apollo – Gallery – Free! (follow to come back tomorrow!!!) #harlemworld🌎 #uptown #coloredpeopletime #blackmusic
Day 12 • African Burial Ground National Monument • Museum/Public Art
@blackstar.reviews Day 12: African Burial Ground National Monument and Museum – FREE (bought and paid for with your taxes and their lives) #sacredspace #ancestors #bhm
Day 13 • ‘Spiritus/Virgil’s Dance’ (one night only!) • Theatre
@blackstar.reviews Day 13 – Dael Orlandersmith’s “Spiritus/Virgil’s Dance” – back for a one-night-only reading – $35 #offbroadway #onewomanshow #blackplaywrights #blackhistorymonth
Day 14 • Black History Month Book Displays at New York Public Library • Libraries!
@blackstar.reviews Day 14 – New York Public Library (and Brooklyn! And Queens!) – BHM Book Displays – FREE #librariesoftiktok #ilovelibraries #public #blackhistorymonth #booklove
Day 15 • ‘Continuum: Over 100 Years of Black Art’ at ACA Galleries • Art Gallery
@blackstar.reviews Day 15 – ‘Continuum: Over 100 Years of Black Art’ at ACA Galleries – FREE (ft. works by Augusta Savage, Elizabeth Catlett, Faith Ringgold and so many more!) #blackhistorymonth #blackartist #chelsea #artgallery #colddays
Day 16 • ‘Looking For Terry’ at Richard Beavers Gallery • Art Gallery
@blackstar.reviews Day 16 – ‘Looking for Terry’ at Richard Beavers Gallery – Gallery Show – FREE (follow to come back tomorrow! 🖤❤️💚) #blackartists #blackhistorymonth #stopandfrisk #intersectionality
Day 17 • ‘Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product’ at MoMA PS1 • Museum
@blackstar.reviews Day 18 – ‘Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product’ At MoMA PS1 – Museum Exhibition – FREE (for all New Yorkers) #blackartists #blackhistorymonth #queertiktok #queerartists #blackqueer
Day 18 • Jazz Museum in Harlem • Museum
@blackstar.reviews Day 18 – Jazz Museum in Harlem – Museum – $1+ #jazz #harlem #latinjazz #trombone #uptown
Day 19 • Jazz Museum in Harlem • Museum
@blackstar.reviews Day 19 – Schomburg Centennial in Harlem! (+ public libraries are important! @Zohran Mamdani @nypl ) FREE #bhm #blackart #blackauthors #librarytiktok
Day 20 • ‘The Waterfall’ at WP Theater • Theatre
@blackstar.reviews Day 20: ‘The Waterfall’ at WP Theater – Theatre – $20+ #blackactors #haitianamerican #momsanddaughters #offbroadway #reviews @WP Theater
Day 21 • ‘Gay Harlem Renaissance’ at New York Historical Society • Museum
@blackstar.reviews Day 21 – ‘Gay Harlem Renaissance’ at New York Historical Society – Museum #harlemrenaissance #blackhistorymonth #blackart #langston
Day 22 • ‘Making Something Out Of Nothing’ at Tanya Weddemire Gallery • Art Gallery
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVFSUSqjYRz/?igsh=MWlkM2Vuc21rdnJyNg%3D%3D
Day 23 • ‘The Monsters’ at City Center • Theatre
@blackstar.reviews Day 23 – ‘The Monsters’ (at NY City Center, prod. by MTC) – Theatre – $35+ #offbroadway #blackactors #blackhistorymonth #blackart #mma
Day 24 • ‘Cold War Choir Practice’ at MCC Theater • Theater
@blackstar.reviews Day 24 – ‘Cold War Choir Practice’ by Ro Reddick at MCC Theater (use code BTT35 for $35 tickets on 2/28 for Black Theater Night 🙌🏽🙌🏽) #offbroadway #review #bhm #blackactors #coldwar
Day 25 • ‘The Axe Forgets, The Tree Remembers’ at Restoration Plaza • Art Gallery
@blackstar.reviews Day 25 – ‘The Axe Forgets, The Tree Remembers’ at Restoration Plaza – Art Gallery – FREE #blackart #blackartist #brooklyn #bedstuy #blackhistorymonth
Day 26 • ‘Manuscripts of Tradition’ by Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu at Jack Shainman • Art Gallery
@blackstar.reviews Day 26 – ‘Manuscripts of Tradition’ by Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu at Jack Shainman – Art Gallery – FREE #blackartists #africanart #nigeriantiktok🇳🇬 #blackhistorymonth #naija
Day 27 • ‘Guarionex’ at Countee Cullen NYPL • Art Exhibition
@blackstar.reviews Day 27 – ‘Guarionex’ Youth Art Exhibition at NYPL Countee Cullen Branch – Art Exhibition – FREE #proudofyou #thekidsarealright #blackhistorymonth #harlem #emergingartist
Day 28 • Harlem Monument Stroll • Public Art
@blackstar.reviews Day 28 – A Very Special Harlem Stroll (thank yall for tuning in to this series! 🙌🏽🙌🏽🖤) #walkingtour #blackhistorymonth #bhm #sculptureart #publicart
