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As we appreciate and celebrate Black History Month in February, there’s one story we should pay close and careful attention to: The Black Panther Party. The legacies of the Panthers and the Black Power Movement still echo nearly 50 years later.

When people talk about Black History Month today, the real history often gets neglected. Martin Luther King Jr.’s opposition to the Vietnam War is ignored by politicians who invoke his legacy — right before they order bombings of other countries. Affirmative action, the war on poverty and other Great Society programs are removed from the history of regular people. These reforms weren’t the result of “benevolent” politicians. They were the products of the millions of black, brown and white people who protested and even revolted in cities across the country as part of the Black Power movement and other social movements in the 1960s.

The Black Panthers were formed at the height of the Black Power movement, rather than in the years leading up to it. As a result, many members were new to revolutionary politics and struggling to apply them in practice for the first time. His honest assessment gives us the chance to learn and build off these lessons for today’s world.

Today’s society is still plagued by racism. Just as slavery gave way to Jim Crow in the South and racism in the North, overt racism has given way to the color-blind rhetoric that masks continued racial inequality today.

For the Panthers, racism was not limited to people’s ideas but was a structure that held down black and brown people. While politicians today (as they did then) blame the oppressed and dispossessed, the Black Panthers saw poverty, violence and racism as a result of an inherently unequal system.

Those who are interested in applying the lessons of the Panthers for challenging racism today should seize this upcoming opportunity to hear Dixon speak. Far from just history, the stories of Aaron Dixon and the Black Panther Party are all the more relevant today.

Aaron Dixon will speak on Thursday, March 7 at 3:30 p.m. at UMass Boston and 7 p.m. at Codman Square Health Center (637 Washington St., Dorchester). Chris Morrill is a student