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Celebrating Black History Month 2025

Celebrating Black History Month 2025

At Healthworks Group, we remain committed to inclusivity, anti-racism and education at all of our clubs. Black History Month, held annually every February, is a celebration and honor of the historical achievements and cultural contributions of Black Americans. As we celebrate Black History Month in 2025, we invite you to join us as we come together to move, support, learn and amplify Black voices and the power of Black women.

HWX x Black History Month Community Fitness Classes

Celebrate with movement to the music of Black artists and our inspiring HWX instructors. These specialty classes are open to our community (free for members and guests) as we set intentions, own our power, and come together as a community of women of color and allies. Classes include 305 Fitness (dance cardio) at Back Bay with Avana Epperson Temple, ACHIEVE (cycle) with Joy Mikhail at Cambridge, REMIX (dance cardio) at Coolidge Corner with Natasha Corbin, Heated Flow + Restore Yoga at Cambridge with Rhonda Gray, and POWER45 (conditioning) with Joy Mikhail at Back Bay.

To see the full schedule and reserve your spot, please click here.

Healthworks members, we ask that you reserve your spot online or in the app, and allow us to keep our Eventbrite spots for guests.

Ways to Celebrate Around Our Clubs

Black History Month Black Business Pop-Up – taking place February 7-8, this is a free Black vendor showcase event at One Brattle Square in Harvard Square
Boston Public Libraries – area libraries will be hosting ongoing special series and events all month long
City of Boston Black History Month Celebrations – a collective of special events, business spotlights, art showcases and more
City of Cambridge Black History Month Celebrations – The City of Cambridge will host a series of events and feature a variety of stories throughout the month that will highlight Black theater, poetry, movies, musical traditions, and cuisine to celebrate Black heritage and culture

Watch, Listen and Read

Are Prisons Obsolete?
Black Friend
Black Girl Dangerous
Cultural Appropriation: A Fixable Cultural Crime
DISCLOSURE
Exterminate All The Brutes
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
Fruitvale Station
I Am Not Your Negro
Malcolm X
Miss Evers’ Boys
MLK/FBI
Selma
Stamped from the Beginning
The Birth of a Nation
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Important Figures, Past a Present, in the Black Community

Alice CoachmanAlice Coachman was the first Black woman from any country to win an Olympic gold medal for the high jump at the 1948 London Olympics.
April Ryan – April Ryan is the longest-serving Black female reporter in the White House press corps and has served on the board of the prestigious White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) for 25 years.
Claudette Colvin - Claudette Colvin is an American pioneer of the 1950s Civil Rights Movement. In March 1955, she was arrested at the age of 15 in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a crowded, segregated bus. This occurred nine months before the more widely known incident in which Rosa Parks.
Dorothy HeightDr. Dorothy Height is recognized as the first leader of the Civil Rights Movement to recognize inequality for women and Black Americans. She was also the president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years.
Elizabeth FreemanElizabeth Freeman, born as “Mumbet,” became the first Black woman to successfully file a lawsuit for freedom from slavery in the state of Massachusetts in 1781. 
Janet Mock – Janet Mock is a transgender rights activist, New York Times bestselling writer and television producer. She’s the founder of the annual #TransBookDrive storytelling campaign and #GirlsLikeUs to raise awareness for trans women and girls.
Kamala Harris – Kamala Harris is an American politician and attorney who served as the 49th Vice President of the United States. She was the first female Vice President and the highest-ranking female official in US. history, as well as the first African American and first Asian American Vice President.
Karine Jeane-Pierre – Karine Jean-Pierre is the first black person and the first openly LGBT+ person to serve as White House Press Secretary from May 2022 to January 2025.
Rosa Parks – Rosa Parks helped to initiate the Civil Rights Movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted more than a year and ended when the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. 
Shirley Chisholm Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman in Congress (1968) and the first woman to seek the nomination for president of the United States (1972).
Tarana BurkeTarana Burke is an American activist who started the MeToo movement in 2006 to help other women with similar experiences stand up for themselves.
Wangari MaathaiWangarĩ Maathai was a Kenyan social, environmental, and political activist who founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women’s rights.

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