Stanfield, now board secretary of the Chinatown Fresno Foundation<\/a>, was instrumental in curating the original Black heritage exhibit inside the foundation\u2019s office on F Street. The display, which remained up for about a year, highlighted historic West Fresno businesses, trailblazing community leaders and standout athletes with roots in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her goal was to represent Fresno\u2019s Black community by centering the local pioneers who helped shape it. Stanfield\u2019s work later became the foundation for what is now on view<\/a> at the recently opened Cultural Heritage Center<\/a> in Chinatown.<\/p>\n \u201cThe stories need to be highlighted because you have to know your history,\u201d Stanfield said. \u201cYou have to know where everything started from, who paved the way for us to get where we are now. Someone had to break that glass ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n Never miss the top stories in Fresno \u2014 sign up for our free, daily newsletter.<\/p>\n This year, Black History Month turned 100. It was first recognized by Dr. Carter G. Woodson and the ASALH in February 1926<\/a>. Decades later in the 1970s, President Gerald Ford officially recognized the month-long celebration.\u00a0<\/p>\n Although President Donald Trump \u2014 during both his terms \u2014 has acknowledged February as Black History Month, he began his second term arguing that some African American history lessons<\/a> are designed to indoctrinate students into hating the country.<\/p>\n This year, his administration rolled back Black history programming at national parks, including the removal of a slavery exhibit by the National Park Service<\/a> at Independence National Historical Park. The Trump administration has also moved to dismantle Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs<\/a> across federal agencies, contractors and public institutions through a series of executive orders.<\/p>\n Despite those setbacks, the centennial Black History Month celebrations took place across the country \u2014 and in Fresno. Community members in California\u2019s fifth largest city organized events and exhibits that celebrate and educate others about its significance.<\/p>\n Black History Month means observance year-round\u00a0<\/p>\n Assistant professor Michael Onyebuchi Eze, of the Africana Studies program at Fresno State<\/a>, frames Black History Month not simply as a commemorative occasion, but as a vital intervention in public memory.\u00a0<\/p>\n He said figures like Woodson were insisting on the recognition of Black history, yet much of it has been historically erased.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you deny history, you mask people\u2019s presence, you objectify them,\u201d Eze said. \u201cAnd when you objectify them, violence becomes a possibility. Black history teaches us to demand more than mere survival.\u201d<\/p>\n For Eze, the significance of Black history is both philosophical and practical. It is not simply a footnote in Western history; it is a living framework for understanding the past, present, and future as interconnected.\u00a0<\/p>\n In his classroom at Fresno State, he teaches that history is always written by the victors, but Black history offers a corrective reframing, restoring those who have been excluded from the past to a rightful place in the present.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the beginning, this is about repairing a fracture in public memory,\u201d Eze said. \u201cThat\u2019s why the 100-year moment is not just commemorative, we should see it as more diagnostic. Memory is not nostalgia. It\u2019s about the moral architecture of democracy itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Eze emphasizes that Black history must be integrated year-round, not confined to February. This involves supporting local storytelling, preserving oral histories, investing in youth civic education, and creating inclusive community spaces.\u00a0<\/p>\n Drawing on Ubuntu philosophy \u2014 \u201cI am because you are\u201d \u2014 he said Black history should help design a more just city. That\u2019s because, Eze said, it refers to how a person\u2019s humanity is shaped and sustained through their relationships with others, and that one person\u2019s flourishing is inseparable from the well-being of the community around them.<\/p>\n Eze pointed to what he described as a recurring Black History Month performance: each February brings public displays of celebration, and when Black community leaders die, people offer praise and applause for acknowledging the loss, then the cycle repeats.<\/p>\n \u201cBlack history is always inclusive, building community across Black, Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous communities,\u201d Eze said. \u201cIn a city like Fresno, the future of civic belonging will depend on whether our histories can be held together without competition and without erasure.\u201d<\/p>\n Honoring Fresno\u2019s first Black trailblazing leaders\u00a0<\/p>\n Stanfield featured a number of people in her first exhibit: Floyd White, Fresno\u2019s first Black fire chief; Joe Williams, one of the city\u2019s first Black city councilmembers; and Hugh W. Goodwin, Fresno\u2019s County\u2019s first Black judge. She also spotlighted local athletes who went on to national and international acclaim, including Olympic gold medalist Randy Williams, a West Fresno native who won gold in the long jump in 1968.<\/p>\n Stanfield also uncovered stories of educators, business owners and other pioneers whose contributions had largely gone unrecognized.<\/p>\n What struck her most was not just how much history she found \u2014 but how little of it she had been taught.<\/p>\n \u201cI was born and raised here in Fresno and it was surprising that some of the stories haven\u2019t been shared, not in school or at community gatherings for every Black History Month,\u201d Stanfield said. \u201cWhen I was able to find some of that information, I had no idea they even existed. It goes back to, if you don\u2019t know, you can\u2019t tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n She recalled learning only as an adult about Rutherford B. Gaston<\/a>, Fresno\u2019s first Black principal, for whom a local middle school is named.\u00a0<\/p>\n She pieced together the exhibit through old archives, sifting through old editions of the city\u2019s Black newspaper, The California Advocate<\/a>, word of mouth and hours of independent research.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some names surfaced only after someone mentioned a relative or neighbor who had quietly made history.<\/p>\n When the original exhibit came down during a transition period, foundation leaders began envisioning a separate cultural space, one that could permanently honor the 11 different communities that helped shape Chinatown. The result is today\u2019s Cultural Heritage Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Stanfield did not curate the current exhibit herself, much of the material she gathered was preserved and expanded for this year\u2019s new display, with enlarged photos and additional context.<\/p>\n For Stanfield, preserving and sharing that history feels especially urgent now. She worries that without intentional efforts to document and teach local history, particularly amid political backlash against diversity initiatives, those stories could fade.\u00a0<\/p>\n Voting as a celebration, not just as a civic duty<\/p>\n Last month, two authors of Party at the Ballot Box: Mobilizing Black Women Voters<\/a>, a new book examining how Black-led mobilization efforts are reshaping American elections, discussed how celebratory voter engagement campaigns by Black-led organizations helped drive record-high\u00a0 turnout for Black voters.<\/p>\n Dr. Melissa R. Michelson, a former Fresno State political science professor who now serves as dean of arts and sciences at Menlo College, joined Sarah V. Hayes, a Fresno State alumnus and doctoral candidate at Georgetown University, to discuss the topic at a Feb. 23 Fresno State event.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michelson and Hayes, who both have strong Fresno ties, helped pioneer the \u201cParty at the Mailbox<\/a>\u201d initiative across five major cities: Baltimore, Atlanta, Detroit, Richmond and Philadelphia. The voter engagement initiative was designed to make voting by mail feel less isolating, more communal, and emphasize voting as a celebration.<\/p>\n In an interview with Fresnoland, they shared how Black Americans have long experienced voting not only as civic duty, but as celebration, and how that\u2019s important to remember for upcoming elections.<\/p>\n For decades, Michelson said, much of the national conversation around Black political participation has centered on struggle and sacrifice. Voting is often framed primarily as an obligation, a way to honor ancestors who fought for access to the ballot, Michelson said, rather than as something communal, affirming or joyful.<\/p>\n \u201cJoy as political power is nothing new,\u201d Michelson said. \u201cWe\u2019re not saying that duty isn\u2019t part of it, or that the honoring of ancestors isn\u2019t part of it, but we\u2019re saying that joy and celebration is a huge part of it as well,\u201d Michelson said. \u201cHistorically marginalized communities, including Black communities, are feeling targeted and disempowered \u2014 this is a way by raising up joy and centering celebration to keep people motivated to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n That idea became the foundation of the Party at the Mailbox (PATM) pilot, organized in partnership with Black Girls Vote<\/a>. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when in-person gatherings were limited, voters in Baltimore received festive mail-in voting kits \u2014 complete with celebratory materials: information regarding Baltimore\u2019s 2020 election, Baltimore based snacks, noise makers, confetti \u00a0and invitations to participate in a shared, communal voting experience.<\/p>\n The researchers expected the messaging to resonate. What they did not expect was the scale of the impact.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_9665.jpg\")
Displays of William Arthur Bigby Jr., the first Black graduate of Fresno High School and Jack Kelly, the first Black police chief, for this year\u2019s exhibit in Chinatown\u2019s Cultural Heritage Center. Gisselle Medina | Fresnoland<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_9661.jpg\")
Displays of Joe Williams, one of the city\u2019s first Black city councilmembers and Lee Kimber, co-founder of The California Advocate newspaper on view in Chinatown. Gisselle Medina | Fresnoland<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_9644.jpg\")
An old edition of Fresno\u2019s Black newspaper, The California Advocate, on display in Chinatown\u2019s Cultural Heritage Center. Gisselle Medina | Fresnoland<\/p>\n