Let us start with the famous question, “ Well, what about white history, then?” I expect that you will think honestly and you, who ask this question, will know that all the history we have learned in school has been white history. Black History month was a way of putting pressure on organisations to understand this.
Black History Month has always taken place in October and February depending on the country. It was celebrated in February in the United States and Canada and in October in Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
It started in 1987 and it aimed to highlight the way people of colour have been treated and analyse the institutional racism that existed in our public services and private companies. They hoped, as the years went by, that it would make a difference. Unfortunately this was not the case.
However this year with the killing of George Floyd and the reawakening of the Black Lives Matter movement have had a massive impact on organisations. There is a new awareness and an acceptance that we have to change.
We are now confronting the reality of institutional racism for the first time. In persisting with Black History Month, it has become a part of our calendar every year but very often a lack of interest has been the result. Now we are truly beginning to have an impact on ordinary people’s lives. We need to celebrate the success of this impact now.
I would like to quote David Olusoga because, although it is lengthy, this famous historian has expressed these thoughts in this quote with great clarity,
“Each year, it is labelled ”politically correct” and in 2018 there calls for it to be into a broader celebration of wider diversity, effectively BAME History Month. One council went as far as rebranding its events under the banner, “Diversity Month. And every year, as regular as clockwork, as inevitably as death and taxes, Black History Month is greeted with the same fatuous and disingenuous claim that it is somehow unfair, as there is no white history month, a ploy every bit as cynical as the phrase, ”All lives matter”.
What makes Black History Month contentious in the UK is not the “black” part but the “history” bit. If it were black culture month or black music month, few people would have a problem.
The issue is that any proper debate about black history inevitably entails discussions of parts of the British past – slavery, imperialism (the British Empire – my words), the development of racial thinking – that have long been brushed under the historical carpet.
This means that once a year black Britons become the delivery system for parts of British history that many people are deeply uncomfortable discussing.”
We find it very difficult facing up to the truth of our history. We are taught about the Egyptians, the Romans, our Kings and Queens and the First and Second World wars. I remember at school revising for the History O Level as it was then and learning all the dates of the Royal Families. I did not learn anything about the truth of the wars and certainly people of colour were never mentioned. The British Empire was not a “good thing” but we were never told the truth.
We have now gone through about how we have oppressed people of colour. This we should have done years ago. Now young people of colour have been glad of the interest in Black History Month that took place last month but there is a proviso.
They believe that Black History should always be important, not just October. We have a collective history and all those who have contributed to it should be recognised and integrated into the education system. As young people expressed it,
“ I don’t understand how we can spend 2 years of GCSE learning about the war and not once mention Gurkha soldiers. If what everyone’s learning doesn’t include your community, how can you be expected to feel you belong?”
“ So many people of colour have done ground-breaking things like the three black women who worked for NASA.” (Hidden Figures – film and book)
A Welsh girl of colour
“ I learned nothing about black history in my five years at school and if it weren’t for my parents, I still wouldn’t know anything. My parents taught me about knowledge of self, slavery, black heroes, black kings and queens.”
It’s interesting to watch the news at the moment because there is so much about COVID 19 and rightly so. What do we see on a regular basis, British doctors, people of colour, who run the NHS, surgeons of colour carrying out amazing operations, nurses from all over the world, even the two who looked after Boris Johnson, one from Portugal and one from New Zealand. Oh my gosh, those dreadful immigrants, saving the life of our Prime Minister, whatever we may think of him!
The same Welsh girl of colour,
“I want the next generation of black children coming up to know that they are not the odd one out and that people do celebrate their history and their skin colour. Being black will always be a struggle but you can achieve.”
It’s a hard world for people of colour because wherever they go they stand out among the crowd. They have to face up to that with courage especially when dealing with racists. There are many famous black people in our own history.
Beachy Head woman – the remains of one of the earliest black Britons was discovered in East Sussex, from the year 245AD from Africa.
Ivory Bangled Lady – 4th century Roman York, a rich woman of black ancestry was found in 1901. She was obviously not a slave.
John Blanke, a royal trumpeter in the Tudor period, a regular musician under Henry VII and VIII and the first named black Briton.
West Indian Soldiers in First World War – 15,204 men who served in the British West Indies Regiment have been forgotten when we remember the men who fought in the First World War. They were not allowed to fight with the white soldiers and suffered racism from their comrades and the enemy. They could not win either way. After the peace the white soldiers were given a pay rise and the black soldiers were made to clean the clothes and latrines of the white soldiers. Finally they mutinied and they were excluded from the victory parades at the end of the war.
After the Second World War, we needed workers who came from the West Indies. Hundreds of black men worked in the mines in South Wales.
Bristol Bus company – they refused to employ black drivers. After four months of protest, the company gave in and this was a first step towards the first British anti-racism laws.
Notting Hill Carnival –largest street party in Europe. Human rights activist Claudia Jones started it in 1958.
British Black Panthers – Under Althea Jones from 1970 , she made it into an organisation helping the working class develop their local communities.
These are just a few of our black Britons who have made a massive contribution to our country and there are many more whom we see on television, in the legal system, in politics and so on. Some are Britons born here and some are immigrants all making their contribution to our society. Black History Month helps us to learn about this contribution. We should appreciate it and respect it.
