One hundred years ago, Carter G. Woodson launched what he called Negro History Week — not as a celebration, but as a correction. He believed America was telling an incomplete story about itself, and that an incomplete story produces an incomplete nation.

He was right then. And the lesson is more urgent now.

I wrote about it for TIME magazine — and I want you to read it. As America prepares to mark 250 years of independence in 2026, the question before us isn’t whether we celebrate this country. It’s whether we’re bold enough to expand it. Woodson gave us the blueprint a century ago. The question is whether we’re willing to follow it.

This piece is about history. But more than that, it’s about the choices we are making right now — about narrative, about opportunity, about who we decide belongs inside the American story.

Read the full piece in TIME here: The Lesson Carter G. Woodson Still Has for America at 250

John Hope Bryant — founder of Bryant Group Ventures, Operation HOPE, Inc, publisher of the Bryant Journal and author of his coming book Capitalism for All: Inclusive Economics and the Future Proofing of America.