The century milestone of Black History Month is not only about honoring the past, but about naming the work still in front of us, especially in professions that quietly help shape the health of our communities.
One of those professions is animal services.
I did not grow up imagining myself in my current role as an executive director with a leading national animal welfare organization. I grew up in Kansas City, Mo., in a neighborhood where spay and neuter were not common and puppies were everywhere. I loved animals, but the only job I ever saw connected to them was animal control. When I walked into a shelter asking if they were hiring and was offered a job cleaning kennels, I took it. That was my entry point.
I also walked into a profession where I did not look like anyone else.
Later, after I had worked at the shelter for some time, one of my supervisors confided that when I first applied, they thought I was a “thug.” I did not dress like the rest of the staff. I did not look like what they expected someone in animal services to look like. That assumption was never just about me. It was about how quickly we label people based on appearance and how easily those labels shape decisions.
That matters, because working in animal services is not just about animals. It’s about people.
Many people enter this field because they love animals, but that is only about one-fourth of the job. What we really do every day is work with people.
At the Best Friends Animal Society Adoption Center in SoHo, where I have worked for the past two years, I made it a point to be people-focused and forward-thinking. Today, when visitors walk through our doors, they are welcomed. They are acknowledged. They are invited to spend time with the animals, instead of observing them from behind gates. We streamlined the adoption process, centered it on conversations, and created a true partnership with the public.
And this is all regardless of the color of their skin.
Under our model, our adoptions increased more than 200 percent over a three-year period. That is not an accident. This is what happens when we understand people and meet them where they are.
Diversity matters in animal services because lived experience sharpens compassion and reduces blind spots. When leadership comes from only one narrow slice of society, we mistake privilege for responsibility and stability for worthiness.
I have now spent nearly two decades in this field and witnessed a remarkable transformation. Today, two out of three animal shelters in this country are saving more than 90 percent of the pets who enter their doors, a designation known as no-kill. Adopting has become easier. Shelters nationwide are evolving from impoundment facilities into true community resource centers for pets and their people.
Ending the killing of pets in animal shelters is tied directly to social justice. When people are pushed to the margins by discrimination, housing instability, or poverty, their pets are pushed with them. Where we see pets suffering, we almost always see people suffering.
I am comfortable being a role model because I did not have one when I started: I had no one who looked like me to talk to, to vent to, or to learn from. Representation creates permission. If people do not see themselves in animal services, they do not apply, they do not engage, and their communities remain underserved.
A century after Black history was formally recognized in this country, we still have work to do. In animal services, the future of our success depends on building organizations that look like the communities we serve. Right now, fewer than 9 percent of the workforce in animal services are Black. I want Black people to know there is space for them here, and that they can be part of the lifesaving and wellness of their own communities.
This Black History Month, I do not want us to just reflect on where we have been. I want us to think seriously about what kind of future we are building. One where animal services look like the communities it serves, where every family feels seen and respected, and where no pet loses their life simply because the system failed to understand the people who loved them.
Marlan Roberts is executive director of Best Friends Animal Society Pet Adoption Center in New York City.