By Anita Hackley Lambert
As Black History Month is observed nationwide, a Monroe County scholar, historian, and author is calling attention to a persistent gap in West Virginia’s recognition and support of African American scholars, authors, historians, and cultural workers—particularly those whose work preserves and advances Black history today.
“West Virginia has a powerful African American past,” the author said, “but it has yet to consistently recognize or invest in the people who are actively carrying that history forward in the present.”
The author is an African American genealogist, historian, ordained minister, associate pastor, and the writer of seven published books. Her body of work includes rigorously researched biographies and Christian memoirs and devotionals that explore Black faith traditions, caregiving, perseverance, and intergenerational memory. Together, her writings document African American history as both an archival record and a lived experience.
Her most recent biography, The Business of Emancipation, examines the life and legacy of Freeman Henry Morris Murray—co-founder of the Niagara Movement and the NAACP. Murray attended the historic 1906 Niagara Movement meeting at Harpers Ferry, later recognized by the National Park Service as a foundational moment in the struggle for Black civil and political rights. Murray was also the author’s great-grandfather.
Despite documented historical ties and extensive scholarship, the author notes a lack of formal recognition or sustained institutional support for Black authors and historians in West Virginia.
“While general humanities and preservation programs exist,” she said, “there is no clear, sustained statewide framework dedicated to identifying, elevating, and supporting Black scholars and cultural researchers whose work strengthens the state’s historical record, moral imagination, and civic understanding.”
She emphasizes that African American history in West Virginia did not conclude with coal camps, Reconstruction classrooms, or early twentieth-century reform movements. That history continues today through living scholars, ministers, educators, writers, and community historians—many of whom labor without institutional backing.
Her call urges cultural institutions, agencies, media outlets, and the public to broaden Black History Month beyond commemorating the past and to include meaningful recognition of those who preserve that history today.
About the Author: Anita Hackley Lambert is an African American historian, genealogist, ordained minister, and author of seven published books. She resides in Monroe County, West Virginia, and her work focuses on African American history, faith, family, and generational memory. For more information, you can reach her at [email protected]