Most people think they know Black history because they can name a few moments, recognize a handful of dates, and recall a few speeches they were taught mattered. And yet, many of those same people are consistently surprised by the present, by backlash, by retrenchment, and by how fragile progress actually turns out to be.

George M. Johnson’s All Boys Aren’t Blue, published in 2020, is a memoir-manifesto about growing up Black and queer in America.

Cultural survival in the Black diaspora was not accidental. It was strategic. Enslavers understood that language, music, and religion sustained identity, which is why those elements were targeted for destruction. What followed was not loss, but transformation.

The Great Exodus of 1879 wasn’t just about escape—it was about agency. Black families left the South to build lives where they could be free. Their legacy lives on in every Black community that dares to start again.