A screenshot from the Melvin Van Peebles film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Yeah hide caption
Black History Month 2023 February is Black History Month in the U.S., and this year's theme is "Black Resistance." Throughout the month, NPR will compile a list of stories, music performances, podcasts and other content that chronicles the Black American experience.
Special Series
Black History Month 2023
Omah Lay performs a Tiny Desk concert Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023, at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. Michael Zamora/NPR/Michael Zamora/NPR hide caption
"It's not all just about anger and aggression," Zulu's Anaiah Lei (far left) says, "I'm kind of tired of being expected to express that when I want to express love." Alice Baxley/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Ab-Soul performs a Tiny Desk concert. Bob Boilen/NPR hide caption
LOS ANGELES - JAN 8: Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data in the STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION episode, "The Hunted." Season 3, ep 11. Original air date, 1/8/90. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images hide caption
The Woodson family members at the Woodson reconciliation ceremony in 1998. Courtesy of Craig Woodson hide caption
1 side owned slaves. The other side started Black History Month. How a family heals
Theo Croker performs a Tiny Desk concert. Photo: Bob Boilen/NPR hide caption
Fousheé performs a Tiny Desk concert. Elizabeth Gillis/NPR hide caption
The documentary Wattstax celebrates its 50th anniversary this month. It will be returning to theaters alongside a new box set called Soul'd Out: The Complete Wattstax Collection. Courtesy of Stax Records and Craft Recordings hide caption
Pulse oximeters are known to be biased against darker skin tones. Kimani Toussaint is a physicist at Brown University working on an alternative to the pulse oximeter. Joshua Burrow/Kimani Toussaint hide caption
COVID-19 made pulse oximeters ubiquitous. Engineers are fixing their racial bias
Lee Fields performs a Tiny Desk concert. Bob Boilen/NPR hide caption
Stokely Carmichael, shown here in 1967, helped popularize the term "Black Power!" in 1966. AFP via Getty Images hide caption
How Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers changed the civil rights movement
Physicist Desiré Whitmore teaches workshops to help teachers better communicate science. As part of that, Desiré uses optical illusions to explain how social blind spots come into play in the classroom. Scott Barbour/Getty Images for NGV hide caption
The special police car TK Miami Police Department hide caption
The Black Panthers march in protest of the trial of co-founder Huey P. Newton in Oakland, California. Bettmann/Getty Images hide caption
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration rejected the original curriculum for the African American studies course in January. Scott Olson/Getty Images hide caption
Vice President Harris (center) marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 6, 2022, in Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 57th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Lady Wray performs a Tiny Desk concert. Credit: Bob Boilen/NPR hide caption
