by Mikaela VanMoorleghem, MPA

Black History Month in 2026 feels different to me. Not heavier exactly, just more honest. I find myself less able to hide behind the idea that “we’ve come so far.” It arrives in a world that feels unsettled and tired, where conversations about race, history, and justice are often rushed, avoided, or reduced to something easier than the truth. So, I find myself asking how I show up in this moment, and whether I’m willing to honestly examine my own privilege. When I do that, I’m reminded how much I’ve moved through this world without having to think twice.

I have never gone to a gas station late at night and been questioned about why I’m there. I have never been walking through a park, birdwatching or simply existing, and had the police called because someone felt uneasy about my presence. I have never worried that sitting in my car, jogging through my neighborhood, browsing in a store, or waiting for a friend might be seen as suspicious or dangerous. I have never had to rehearse how to survive a routine traffic stop.

That isn’t because I’ve done everything right. It’s because I’m white. And this isn’t accusatory. It’s simply the reality of being able to move through ordinary moments without fear, of being able to exist without constant scrutiny. It’s something I didn’t earn, but something I benefit from, and sitting with that matters. Being honest about the ways the world has been easier for me helps shape how I choose to show up.

As I sit with that truth, I begin to notice the pattern beneath it. The ease I experience isn’t accidental, and the fear others carry isn’t random. When some people are questioned, watched, or treated as threats in everyday situations and others are not, it points to something larger than individual behavior.

It reveals how systems, policies, and assumptions can operate in ways that protect some lives more readily than others. It leaves me asking how systems came to function this way, and what it means for me to engage with that reality honestly.

For me, it doesn’t start with having the right words or solutions. It starts with paying attention, listening to experiences that aren’t my own and resisting the urge to explain them away or make them more comfortable. It means noticing when my own ease is part of a larger pattern, and allowing that awareness to shape how I listen, what I question, and where I place my trust. It’s slower, more reflective work, and often uncomfortable, but it feels like a necessary beginning.

Engaging with that reality also reminds me that Black History Month is not only about what has been denied or taken. It is about what has been created, sustained, and led, often in spite of tremendous barriers. It is about Black leadership, innovation, faith, culture, and joy. It is about generations who have shaped our country in profound ways, even when they were excluded from its promises.

Celebrating Black history means honoring those accomplishments fully, not as an afterthought, and not only in moments of crisis. It means recognizing brilliance and leadership alongside struggle and refusing to let hardship be the only story we tell. Both truths belong together.

So for me, Black History Month in 2026 is about holding space for all of it. The celebration and the reckoning. The gratitude and the responsibility. It’s about showing up with humility, curiosity, and respect, committed not just to remembering, but to learning and living differently because of what I’ve come to understand.

That feels like the work of this moment. Not perfect. Not finished. But honest and still grounded in hope.