From the Super Bowl stage to the streets of Monterey County, Black leaders are rising up.

As we celebrate another Black History Month, we pay homage to our ancestors past and present while continuing to fight the good fight in what is known as the “land of the free,” hoping that one day we will reach the promised land.

We cannot afford to stand still and deactivate. We must continue to activate and mobilize so our future generations might be able to experience generational wealth. Today, Black families are subjected to blatant racism and discrimination. Continued cries have fallen on many deaf ears.

The Monterey County Black Caucus, which includes a team of highly educated, young, gifted and Black soldiers, shows no sign of slowing down until anti-Blackness within our housing and educational systems is addressed and the playing field is even.

While the Monterey County Black Caucus focuses on local people and institutions, the halftime Super Bowl performance of Kendrick Lamar on Feb. 9, with President Donald Trump in attendance, was aligned with our mission. “The revolution is about to be televised. You picked the right time but the wrong guy,” Lamar said to 133.5 million viewers.

The symbolism ran deep, through the music and choreography – a team of all-Black dancers dressed in red, white and blue, with Lamar in the middle representing a nation divided, a metaphor of racial and political division. Samuel L. Jackson played Uncle Sam, showing how Blacks play the game to get ahead in white America.

We must continue to activate and mobilize.

But it goes much deeper than that. “Uncle Sam Wants You,” the military recruiting slogan went. General William T. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. #15, issued in 1865, was a promise to each previously enslaved, newly freed Black family to receive 40 acres of land and a mule. It was a grand plan for redistribution of land – and it was never realized. At the end of the Civil War in the fall of 1865, president Andrew Johnson overturned Sherman’s order and returned the land to its previous Confederate owners. The great restitution that could have been was not delivered.

On stage, Lamar referenced Sherman’s unfulfilled promise explicitly (“Forty acres and a mule, this is bigger than the music”) and ongoing racial disparities, mass incarceration, and “the game” that is rigged against people who do not already hold wealth and power.

His performance was like no other Super Bowl halftime performance. So many statements were made. Lamar delivered messages both explicit and subtle – a true statement against social and political oppression and injustice.

We need to keep Lamar in our prayers, for we know all too well what can happen when the naked truth is told and exposed, and he has dared to expose it. “They tried to rig the game, but you can’t fake influence,” he said.

Thank you, Kendrick, for keeping it real. As Black History Month comes to an end, his message is as relevant as ever: Turn off the TV. Game over.

LISA LEWIS is a community health worker and a member of the Monterey County Black Caucus. She lives in Seaside.