HomeMy WebLinkAboutFebruary 2024 Black History MonthCOLUMBIA 0 HEIGHTS
PROCLAMATION
Black History Month: February 2024
WHEREAS, the City of Columbia Heights is committed to recognizing and honoring the
contributions of all members of our communities; and
WHEREAS, Negro History Week was established in 1926 by Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson
as a way to neutralize the deliberate distortion of Black History. This movement grew over
the years to Black History Month, to give an objective and scholarly balance in American
and World History; and
WHEREAS, the Month of February was selected as Black History Month because it marks
the Birth of Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, and Abraham Lincoln,
leaders whose actions greatly impacted the lives of the American Black population; and
WHEREAS, the contributions African Americans made and continue to make to our
nation's economic strength as well as to our history, music, arts, national defense from the
Revolutionary War to present-day military operations, written words and discoveries, and
inventions are often overlooked; and
WHEREAS, on January 1,1863, the Emancipation Proclamation set the United States on the
path of ending slavery. On August 28,1963, hundreds of thousands of Americans of all
backgrounds joined the March on Washington in pursuit of jobs, justice and freedom to the
Memorial of Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation, in pursuit of
freedom and equality for all; and
WHEREAS, despite all the progress, the legacy of slavery and segregation still persists in
our nation in the forms of mass incarceration, the school to prison pipeline, racial profiling,
educational inequalities, housing and employment discrimination, racism and bias; and
NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that I, Amdda Marquez Simula, Mayor of Columbia
Heights, do hereby proclaim the month of February 2024 as Black History Month in the City
of Columbia Heights, County of Anoka, State of Minnesota, U.S.A.
r
4A.ida Marquez Si hula, Mayor
February 12, 2024