Time & Perspective Quote by Marty Meehan

Gratitude is doing a lot of work here. Marty Meehan’s line is the kind of civic language politicians reach for in February: warm, unthreatening, and broadly un-arguable. That’s precisely its intent. By framing Black History Month as a moment to “celebrate” and “be grateful,” he positions the audience as beneficiaries of Black achievement rather than inheritors of an ongoing dispute about power, policy, and repair. It’s praise that also gently manages discomfort: you can honor the past without interrogating the present too closely.

The pronoun choice is the tell. “They made” and “their legacies” creates distance, placing Black history at arm’s length from the mainstream “we” doing the celebrating. It’s not necessarily malicious, but it reveals a common institutional habit: Black history is welcomed as contribution, less so as critique. The language of inspiration smooths sharp edges, converting struggle into uplift and activism into a motivational poster. In politics, that conversion is useful because it allows agreement across constituencies without committing to specifics.

Still, the second half signals a bid for relevance: “continue their work” gestures toward continuity, implying Black History Month should be a prompt for action, not just commemoration. The subtext is a call to participate, while leaving unanswered the hard question of what participation costs - votes, money, reforms, accountability - and who must give what up. It’s a bridge sentence: sturdy enough for a ceremonial speech, vague enough to avoid naming the conflicts that made those legacies necessary in the first place.