Dear Enroot Family,
We, the Enroot staff team, invite you to join us in observing and honoring Black History Month alongside our students, alumni, volunteers, Board members, and our entire community. The last year has been a reminder of the continued struggles of Black people in this country and our resilience to continue to fight. We have seen the power of the Black Lives Matter movement spark global solidarity and the push towards greater visibility about the ongoing issues affecting the Black community. At the forefront, we celebrate Black History Month by uplifting the monumental contributions of Black people in building and improving our communities, improving this country, and countries around the world. In February, and throughout the year:
We celebrate Black joy, Black beauty, and Black art.
We celebrate Black courage, Black leadership, Black strength, and Black wisdom.
We celebrate Black brilliance, Black ingenuity, Black intellect, and Black invention.
We honor the fact that Black people are integral to the foundation of our country – from its inception, in defense of our values of freedom, liberty and democracy, and the continued commitment to holding us accountable to those values each day – without the appropriate recognition and compensation.
We celebrate that Black people have been at the forefront of resistance in this country, as Nikole Hannah-Jones captures so well in the seminal 1619 Project:
We celebrate the many Enroot students, alumni, families, volunteers, staff and Board members who identify as Black and their contributions to building the organization that we all appreciate so much today.
Alongside our students, we celebrate the contributions of Black people to so many of the countries our students hail from, from Toussaint L’Ouverture in Haiti and Haile Sellasie in Ethiopia, to lesser known figures like Carmen Pereira in Guinea-Bissau.
We celebrate the essential contributions of Black immigrants in science, technology, medicine, the arts, education, and across all fields.
We reaffirm each day in our words and actions that BLACK LIVES MATTER, and are sacred.
Most importantly, we hold ourselves accountable, through our work and in our personal lives, for taking concrete anti-racist action daily to advance racial equity in our community and beyond.
Thank you for joining us in celebrating Black History Month, and in celebrating Black people all 12 months of the year.
In celebration and in solidarity,
The Enroot Team