What's at stake:
This year marked a century of honoring Black History Month in the United States, but as President Donald Trump and his administration continue to erase it, Fresno leaders call for a year-round approach that connects the past, present, and future.
For nearly three decades, June Stanfield has cut hair and built community inside Golden Cuts Barber Shop in the heart of Fresno’s Chinatown. But in 2021, she took on a different kind of project: assembling one of the first Black heritage exhibits in the neighborhood.
Stanfield, now board secretary of the Chinatown Fresno Foundation, was instrumental in curating the original Black heritage exhibit inside the foundation’s office on F Street. The display, which remained up for about a year, highlighted historic West Fresno businesses, trailblazing community leaders and standout athletes with roots in the city.
Her goal was to represent Fresno’s Black community by centering the local pioneers who helped shape it. Stanfield’s work later became the foundation for what is now on view at the recently opened Cultural Heritage Center in Chinatown.
“The stories need to be highlighted because you have to know your history,” Stanfield said. “You have to know where everything started from, who paved the way for us to get where we are now. Someone had to break that glass ceiling.”
This year, Black History Month turned 100. It was first recognized by Dr. Carter G. Woodson and the ASALH in February 1926. Decades later in the 1970s, President Gerald Ford officially recognized the month-long celebration.
Although President Donald Trump — during both his terms — has acknowledged February as Black History Month, he began his second term arguing that some African American history lessons are designed to indoctrinate students into hating the country.
This year, his administration rolled back Black history programming at national parks, including the removal of a slavery exhibit by the National Park Service at Independence National Historical Park. The Trump administration has also moved to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs across federal agencies, contractors and public institutions through a series of executive orders.
Despite those setbacks, the centennial Black History Month celebrations took place across the country — and in Fresno. Community members in California’s fifth largest city organized events and exhibits that celebrate and educate others about its significance.
Black History Month means observance year-round
Assistant professor Dr. Michael Onyebuchi Eze, of the Africana Studies program at Fresno State, frames Black History Month not simply as a commemorative occasion, but as a vital intervention in public memory.
He said figures like Woodson were insisting on the recognition of Black history, yet much of it has been historically erased.
“When you deny history, you mask people’s presence, you objectify them,” Eze said. “And when you objectify them, violence becomes a possibility. Black history teaches us to demand more than mere survival.”
For Eze, the significance of Black history is both philosophical and practical. It is not simply a footnote in Western history; it is a living framework for understanding the past, present, and future as interconnected.
In his classroom at Fresno State, he teaches that history is always written by the victors, but Black history offers a corrective reframing, restoring those who have been excluded from the past to a rightful place in the present.
“From the beginning, this is about repairing a fracture in public memory,” Eze said. “That’s why the 100-year moment is not just commemorative, we should see it as more diagnostic. Memory is not nostalgia. It’s about the moral architecture of democracy itself.”
Eze emphasizes that Black history must be integrated year-round, not confined to February. This involves supporting local storytelling, preserving oral histories, investing in youth civic education, and creating inclusive community spaces.
Drawing on Ubuntu philosophy — “I am because you are” — he said Black history should help design a more just city. That’s because, Eze said, it refers to how a person’s humanity is shaped and sustained through their relationships with others, and that one person’s flourishing is inseparable from the well-being of the community around them.
Eze pointed to what he described as a recurring Black History Month performance: each February brings public displays of celebration, and when Black community leaders die, people offer praise and applause for acknowledging the loss, then the cycle repeats.
“Black history is always inclusive, building community across Black, Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous communities,” Eze said. “In a city like Fresno, the future of civic belonging will depend on whether our histories can be held together without competition and without erasure.”
Honoring Fresno’s first Black trailblazing leaders
Stanfield featured a number of people in her first exhibit: Floyd White, Fresno’s first Black fire chief; Joe Williams, one of the city’s first Black city councilmembers; and Hugh W. Goodwin, Fresno’s County’s first Black judge. She also spotlighted local athletes who went on to national and international acclaim, including Olympic gold medalist Randy Williams, a West Fresno native who won gold in the long jump in 1968.
Stanfield also uncovered stories of educators, business owners and other pioneers whose contributions had largely gone unrecognized.
What struck her most was not just how much history she found — but how little of it she had been taught.
“I was born and raised here in Fresno and it was surprising that some of the stories haven’t been shared, not in school or at community gatherings for every Black History Month,” Stanfield said. “When I was able to find some of that information, I had no idea they even existed. It goes back to, if you don’t know, you can’t tell me.”
She recalled learning only as an adult about Rutherford B. Gaston, Fresno’s first Black principal, for whom a local middle school is named.
She pieced together the exhibit through old archives, sifting through old editions of the city’s Black newspaper, The California Advocate, word of mouth and hours of independent research.
Some names surfaced only after someone mentioned a relative or neighbor who had quietly made history.
When the original exhibit came down during a transition period, foundation leaders began envisioning a separate cultural space, one that could permanently honor the 11 different communities that helped shape Chinatown. The result is today’s Cultural Heritage Center.
While Stanfield did not curate the current exhibit herself, much of the material she gathered was preserved and expanded for this year’s new display, with enlarged photos and additional context.
For Stanfield, preserving and sharing that history feels especially urgent now. She worries that without intentional efforts to document and teach local history, particularly amid political backlash against diversity initiatives, those stories could fade.
Voting as a celebration, not just as a civic duty
Last month, two authors of Party at the Ballot Box: Mobilizing Black Women Voters, a new book examining how Black-led mobilization efforts are reshaping American elections, discussed how celebratory voter engagement campaigns by Black-led organizations helped drive record-high turnout for Black voters.
Dr. Melissa R. Michelson, a former Fresno State political science professor who now serves as dean of arts and sciences at Menlo College, joined Sarah V. Hayes, a Fresno State alumnus and doctoral candidate at Georgetown University, to discuss the topic at a Feb. 23 Fresno State event.
Michelson and Hayes, who both have strong Fresno ties, helped pioneer the “Party at the Mailbox” initiative across five major cities: Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, Richmond and Philadelphia. The voter engagement initiative was designed to make voting by mail feel less isolating, more communal, and emphasize voting as a celebration.
In an interview with Fresnoland, they shared how Black Americans have long experienced voting not only as civic duty, but as celebration, and how that’s important to remember for upcoming elections.
For decades, Michelson said, much of the national conversation around Black political participation has centered on struggle and sacrifice. Voting is often framed primarily as an obligation, a way to honor ancestors who fought for access to the ballot, Michelson said, rather than as something communal, affirming or joyful.
“Joy as political power is nothing new,” Michelson said. “We’re not saying that duty isn’t part of it, or that the honoring of ancestors isn’t part of it, but we’re saying that joy and celebration is a huge part of it as well,” Michelson said. “Historically marginalized communities, including Black communities, are feeling targeted and disempowered — this is a way by raising up joy and centering celebration to keep people motivated to participate.”
That idea became the foundation of the Party at the Mailbox (PATM) pilot, organized in partnership with Black Girls Vote. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when in-person gatherings were limited, voters in Baltimore received festive mail-in voting kits — complete with celebratory materials: information regarding Baltimore’s 2020 election, Baltimore based snacks, noise makers, confetti and invitations to participate in a shared, communal voting experience.
The researchers expected the messaging to resonate. What they did not expect was the scale of the impact.
The PATM pilot increased Black voter turnout in Baltimore by double digits in the 2020 primary elections, according to the qualitative data through focus groups, interviews and surveys.
Michelson and Hayes said that Black women who received the kits didn’t just vote; many became organizers in their own neighborhoods. They hosted small gatherings and encouraged community members to participate.
The findings feel especially relevant in today’s political climate, the authors said, as cynicism and distrust dominate headlines and social media feeds.
“If you are just scrolling through your social media, it’s really depressing, and really cynical,” Michelson said. “It’s all about corruption, the power of billionaires and prices going up, war over here and death over there. If people are just thinking, ‘politics makes me feel bad,’ why would you want to be part of that?”
Framing civic participation as a celebration can help counter disengagement, Hayes argued. She described joy as a form of resistance and a “reinforcer of our democratic values,” emphasizing that “we are better and stronger together as a collective unit,” particularly in moments when communities feel targeted or marginalized. While policies may shift and rights may be challenged, she added, “one thing the state cannot take away is joy and community.”
Michelson pointed to her earlier voter mobilization research in the Central Valley, including door-to-door canvassing efforts conducted with Fresno State students. Personal contact, she said, still matters, especially in an era shaped by misinformation and AI-generated content.
Across the five major cities, voters reported that knowing the PATM initiative was happening nationwide made them feel connected to a broader movement.
“People’s power multiplies when they know they’re not alone,” Hayes said.
At a time when confidence in democratic institutions is strained, the authors argue that community-centered, celebratory mobilization offers not just a strategy, but a reminder. Democracy, at its best, can be collective, joyful and rooted in belonging.
