Black excellence means luxuriating in your Blackness. Just bathing in it. In a world that has told you forever that it’s not ok to be Black and you’re like “No, yes it is. I’m going to be Black as possible. And crush it while doing so.”
Here’s Tracy Clayton and Heben Nigatu from Buzzfeed’s “Another Round” on what Black excellence means to them.
Tumblr! Black History Month is here, and we have some stuff in store to celebrate and honor the achievements of the Black community past and present. There are Answer Times to celebrate Black voices in entertainment and modern civil rights, weekly themed round-up posts to showcase Black excellence found everywhere, video interviews with celebrities and activists, a special Black History Month explore page updated daily with the best BHM posts from all of you, and custom stickers based on the top tags surrounding Black culture on Tumblr in 2016. Take a peek:
We’ll be rolling this stuff out all over the place on Tumblr, but the Black History Month explore page is live right now. It’s filled with stuff made by all of you, and it’s already pretty great on day one. Happy Black History Month, Tumblr.
We’ve been working on something special and are so excited to announce that we’re partnering with Tumblr to bring the best of Black excellence straight to your dashboard. How is this February different from the usual BHM celebrations? This time around, we won’t stop on the last day of February. We and Tumblr are committed to shining a light on the Black community throughout this entire year. This is #BlackExcellence365.
Our goal for #BlackExcellence365 is to the showcase the importance of diversity in Black history, present, and future. The Black community is not monolithic. It is a pan-African community, one consisting of a myriad of ethnic identities from African-American, African, Caribbean, Latinx, etc. Blackness encompasses different religions, sexual and gender identities, socioeconomic statuses, and more. Celebrating these identities and their successes is what #BlackExcellence365 is all about. We’ll be doing this by showcasing the continuous achievements of and contributions by Black people in history, science, music, art, media, social impact, fashion, gaming, poetry, and so many other areas of prominent cultural and historical importance.
Here’s a peek at just some of the things you can expect to see from @action (unless otherwise indicated!), Tumblr’s official blog for social impact:
Are you ready? We’re ready. Stay tuned to @action - Tumblr’s official blog for social impact, for the latest news, features, and community highlights. ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽
Oh, yeah. #BlackExcellence365 is here, and who better to help us usher it in than the people behind @theblackoutofficial? The Blackout has spent years cultivating a community of people who make it their mission to own their Blackness by redefining what Blackness means to them.
Be sure to follow both @theblackoutofficial and @action to stay on top of the latest #BlackExcellence365 news all year long.
PS, our Black History Month stickers are back!
Slap ‘em on your selfie, throw ‘em on your GIFs. They’re in the app right now, and so easy to use.
We are back with our third year of #BlackExcellence365. Now that we are the BIG 3, it seems only right to launch a blog dedicated to BLACK EXCELLENCE.
This blog is about all things BLACK and EXCELLENT, showcasing the Black community’s contributions to the world. From music to fashion to literature to historical spotlights—we’ll be featuring all of it.
We will lean on the past, revel in the present, and create a vision for the future. Black history is every day, so we plan to celebrate it every day. And, with your help, we can make this an even bigger celebration.
Are you a Black Creative?
Then keep an eye out for opportunities to have your work featured here on @blackexcellence, as well as other official blogs such as @art, @music, @fashion, @entertainment, @books, @gaming, @kpop, or @staff. You can also tag your work #BlackExcellence365 to help us find it.
Before you go
Don’t forget to follow the #black history month tag to see what the Tumblr community is creating.
This is #BlackExcellence365. Stay tuned ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽!
Third year running for our #BlackExcellence365 celebration! We thought it was time to level up and give our favorite tag its own home.
Go on and give @blackexcellence a follow for all things Black and excellent. You won’t regret it.
Black excellence should be celebrated 365 days a year—not just during February. That’s why #BlackExcellence365 was born exactly one year ago today. Since then, it’s been a year-round Tumblr celebration of Black artists, politicians, social justice advocates, musicians, and more.
There is no #BlackExcellence365 if there is no intersectionality. Last year Kawther Inuwa from Muslim Girl Army’s (@muslimgirlarmy) sat down to tell the community about her experiences in being a Nigerian Muslim woman who works as a social activist. 18 Million Rising (@18mr), an Asian American activist group, informed the world how the Asian American community can show solidarity with Black communities. Southerners On New Ground revealed how their pro-Black, pro-queer, pro-immigrant, and pro-worker organization were intent on helping LGBTQ+ visibility and safety in the Southern states in America.
Why stop now? Let’s kick off #BlackExcellence365 2020!
This isn’t just about honoring the past and celebrating the present, it’s about bettering the future, too. That’s why #BlackExcellence365 2020 will feature a number of Q&A Issue Times throughout the year. We’re partnering with a few leading organizations like Black Girls Vote (@blackgirlsvote), Planned Parenthood Action Fund (@ppaction), and 18 Million Rising (@18MR). Stay tuned here for the opportunity to ask these folks a question.
You can also look forward to Artist Spotlights that highlight Black artists on Tumblr who are doing incredible things. Aundre Larrow (@aundrelarrow) will reveal his experience as a photographer whose work focuses on Black bodies. Visual artist Gianni Lee (@giannilee) will give us an inside look at his experience in the art world.
If you’re a Black creative who wants to get featured in a reblog on one of our official Tumblrs like @art, @music, @fashion, @entertainment, @books, @gaming, @kpop, and @staff, let us know! Just tag your post #BlackExcellence365 so we can find it. This celebration means so much more if it includes you and your work.
Make sure to stay tuned on @action to see all of the upcoming highlights we couldn’t mention here yet. There are 52 weeks of #BlackExcellence365 2020 left, after all. ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽
Oh, and follow the #black history month to engage with what the Tumblr community is creating. Seeing the selfies, art, music, and everything else created by all of you is a real treat.
Hey Tumblr! You’ve been making beautiful posts for Black History Month, and we’ve collected some the finest right over here in a special Black History Month Explore page. We’ll be adding to it every day, so if you’ve got a black history post in your heart, make it, tag it #black history month, and we’ll be on the lookout.
Admire, revel, learn, teach, and radiate some serious joy. Happy Black History Month, Tumblr.
A little music to cap off your Black History Month. Enjoy.
Black Women in Rock (blackwomeninrock)
In classic rock, in modern rock, in genre-defying rock, in devastatingly gorgeous proto-rock. See Sister Rosetta Tharpe, above. Unreal.
Today in Hip Hop History (todayinhiphophistory)
“Mama Said Knock You Out” turned 24 yesterday. How you react to that will determine whether this blog is either your daily history lesson, or your daily wave of crushing nostalgia.
’70s Best Black Albums (70sbestblackalbums)
Still the most premium of decades.
Delta Blues, Folk, Gospel and More (deltabluesfolkgospelandmore)
Take a dip in these, the richest veins of American music. Track after track after track.
fyeahblackrockmusic (blackrockandrollmusic)
The nowest of this batch. Mostly videos. Completely vital.
Bonus:
Jagged Grain: Blues Archive (jaggedgrain)
This blog isn’t really kept up any more, but it’s still an incredible archive. You’re gonna see the best family jam session in history on the same page as Mance Lipscomb’s false teeth.
Just watch. This drummer:
Today’s black history month post is gonna be a little different. Today’s post is gonna be about the music of the shows and films revolving around black artists, stories and characters. Some of these are from shows we have yet to cover and some are from ones we have. Enjoy!
1. The Proud Family Theme / Destiny’s Child ft. Solange Knowles / The Proud Family
2. Tear it Up / Immature / Bebe’s Kids
3. Time for Your Check up/Stretch & Flex / Doc McStuffins
4. What’s Wrong With This Picture / Raven-Symone / Happily Ever After Fairy Tales for Every Child
5. Judo Flip / Asheru / The Boondocks
6. So Disfunkshunal / Cedric the Entertainer / The Proud Family
7. Almost There / Anika Noni Rose / The Princess and the Frog
8. Static Shock Theme / Lil Romeo / Static Shock
9. Paraiso / Soil & “Pimp” Sessions / Michiko to Hatchin
10. Afro Samurai OP / RZA / Afro Samurai
11. The Gospel Truth / Lillias White, LaChanze, Roz Ryan, Cheryl Freeman, Vaneese Y. Thomas / Disney’s Hercules
12. Class of 3000 Theme (Full) / Andre 3000 / Class of 3000
13. Black Dynamite Theme / Black Dynamite
14. John Stewart’s Green Lantern Oath / Phil Lamarr / Justice League
15. Down in New Orleans / Anika Noni Rose / The Princess and the Frog
16. Throwdown / Andre 3000 / Class of 3000
Feel free to add on your favorites!
[gif from fyeahnostalgia]
The always excellent Did Ya Know? Animation (didyaknowanimation) has been did-ya-knowing all month about black animators, black voice actors, black characters, and the movies and television shows that showcase them all.
This particular post should fill up your weekend nicely. Check out the rest right here.
Black History Month!
My favorite parts of history (as might be obvious from my choice of subject matter when making books) are the ones that fall into easily-categorized genres, genres with associated visual iconographies. This is the sort of stuff I loved as a kid: pirates, knights, cowboys, explorers, romans and Egyptians and flying aces. Stuff you could find featured in a bag of toys or a generic costume.
For Black History Month, I thought I might visit some of these adventure-leaning periods and pick a few historic black people from those eras to draw, just for fun. If you’re doing a project or report in school this month, you could do worse than to tackle one of these toughies. Feel free to share some of these with youngsters that you know. And call them youngsters, they LOVE that.
So good. And all of their stories are in the click-through. So click through.
Here at MoCADA we actually believe that every month is Black History Month. From the birth of civilization to contemporary culture, the gifts Black Africa and its diaspora have given to the world are innumerable and unquestionable. Clearly 28 days is an insufficient celebration. But we also don’t want February to go to waste, so please celebrate Black Future Month with us this year! Too often Black people, and people of color in general, are excluded from mainstream media’s depictions of the future. Although people of color make up 90% of the world population, when is the last time you saw a blockbuster movie set in the future with a protagonist of color who wasn’t Will Smith? So in honor of Black Future Month 2015, we kick off our celebration with the godfather of modern Afrofuturism, Sun Ra. Space is the place! #SunRa #BlackFutureMonth #BlackFuturesPast #Mocada
