Power and Pride: A Black History Month Reflection

Each October, Black History Month offers us a time to pause, reflect, and reawaken our understanding of the resilience, creativity, and defiance that have shaped Black identity across the world.

This year’s theme — “Power and Pride” — challenges us to look beyond the pages of history and into the beating heart of liberation movements, cultural revolutions, and spiritual awakenings that have defined generations.

It’s about reclaiming narratives. It’s about remembering the people who dared to stand when others bowed, to speak when silence was safer, and to create when the world tried to erase.

Ibrahim Traoré: The Fire of a New Generation

At just 34, Ibrahim Traoré, President of Burkina Faso, has emerged as a symbol of defiance, dignity, and renewed African sovereignty. In a world still burdened by the shadow of colonial legacies, Traoré’s rise represents the cry of a continent determined to reclaim its own story.

He stands in a lineage of visionaries — Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba, Kwame Nkrumah, and countless others — leaders who refused to be defined by external powers. Like them, Traoré’s leadership channels the spirit of Pan-African unity, calling for self-reliance, dignity, and a new African consciousness. Where Sankara planted the seeds of revolution, Traoré tends the soil — reminding us that freedom is not a relic of history but a living pursuit.

Pride as Resistance

To embrace Black pride is not arrogance — it is an act of restoration. For centuries, Blackness was defined by others: oppressed, categorised, and diminished. Yet, through art, music, scholarship, and protest, Black communities have reclaimed their essence.

From the Harlem Renaissance to Afrofuturism, from Nelson Mandela’s calm defiance to Angela Davis’s fearless intellect, from Miriam Makeba’s voice to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s pen, pride has always been the root of power. And power, in its truest form, has never been about domination. It is about agency, self-definition, and the unbreakable link between identity and destiny.

The Living Legacy

Today’s Black leaders, artists, and thinkers carry this flame forward — whether through activism, entrepreneurship, or cultural expression. Across the diaspora, people are redefining success on their own terms, rooted in ancestral wisdom and modern innovation. “Power and Pride” reminds us that our history is not confined to textbooks; it lives in our language, our rhythm, and the quiet strength of those who never gave up.

A Poem: “The Drum Still Beats”

They buried our drums in foreign sands,

Yet still, the rhythm rose through our hands.

From Sankara’s flame to Traoré’s fight,

We carve our dawn from endless night.

Our power is born from whispered names,

Our pride, the echo that none can tame.

The roots run deep — through blood, through time,

A thousand voices, one steady rhyme.

So listen close — the ancestors hum,

“The journey’s long, but we are one.”

A Question for thee

What does freedom look like — not as a flag or a speech — but as something you live, breathe, and protect every single day, not just for Black History Month?