PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Reflecting on Black History Month, Cardinal Wilton Gregory recalled how young people in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C., would often climb on the bronze statue of Carter G. Woodson, rub his head, and try to figure out why he got a statue in their neighborhood. 

“I pray that they might also see their own futures in the likeness of the man who dared to believe that people of color have an important heritage in which to take pride and a future in which to hope,” said Cardinal Gregory, the apostolic administrator of Washington, in a guest homily at a Black History Month Jubilee Mass in the Archdiocese of Newark on Feb. 16.

Woodson, a historian and author, founded Negro History Week in 1926 as an effort to teach people about the contributions and history of African American people. Woodson died in 1950. After a quarter century of advocacy from members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity — of which Woodson was a member  — to encourage celebrating the week and expanding it to a month, President Gerald Ford became the first president to recognize Black History Month in 1976. 

Cardinal Gregory’s mention of Woodson and his hope that his legacy will inspire future generations was a microcosm of his homily’s overarching message: “Black History Month is as much about tomorrow as it is about yesterday.”

Cardinal Gregory said that the pioneers of our past were pioneers because they helped people keep an eye on the future and all of its possibilities, noting that “we do them a tremendous disservice to relegate them simply to the accomplishments that they may have achieved yesterday.” 

“[Black History Month] is an opportunity for all of us to recognize the many contributions that people of color have provided this country,” Cardinal Gregory said. “However, Black History Month is much more than simply re-examining the past.” 

“It is a moment to commit to tomorrow and to urge those who will be our future heroes to seize the challenges that will lie ahead for them and for all of us,” he said. 

The Mass was one of Cardinal Gregory’s last at the helm of the Archdiocese of Washington. Pope Francis accepted his resignation on Jan. 6, at the age of 77. He will be replaced by Cardinal Robert McElroy, currently the bishop of the Diocese of San Diego, California, in an installation Mass on March 11.

The Feb. 16 Black History Month Jubilee Mass in the Archdiocese of Newark was held at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, celebrated the Mass, which featured songs celebrating the black Catholic experience and tradition and a procession of banners depicting black candidates for sainthood.

At the start of the Mass, Cardinal Tobin welcomed Cardinal Gregory and took a dig at political leaders in the process. 

“The welcome is to my brother, Wilton Gregory, the cardinal archbishop of Washington, D.C., who shortly after his first communion was named a bishop of the Catholic Church, and he’s been doing it ever since, and doing it well,” Cardinal Tobin said. “In Chicago and in Belleville, Illinois; in Atlanta; and now in Washington, D.C., and God knows there’s a lot of need in Washington for some Gospel teaching.”