Summer riots were a consequence of relegating the subject to just one month, says Black Curriculum founder
Black history must be made mandatory in England to counter hatred and help prevent racist riots, a leading campaigner says.
Lavinya Stennett, who founded the Black Curriculum, warned of the real risks of black history and a diverse curriculum being relegated to just one month, or only being implemented in schools with diverse students and in metropolitan areas.
Continue reading...Exclusive: majority of British people found to have ‘shockingly little’ knowledge about Black British history
More than half of Britons know so little about Black British history that they cannot name a single historical figure, a survey has revealed.
The researchers found that the UK knows “shockingly little” about Black British history. While 75% of British adults surveyed acknowledged that they did not know “very much” or “anything at all” about the subject, more than half (53%) could not recall any Black British historical figures and only 7% could name more than four.
Continue reading...Hundreds of events lined up for October, with focus on role black women have played in shaping British history
Black History Month launches with hundreds of events planned across the UK in October, with celebrations focusing on the contributions of black women and the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush.
First celebrated in the UK in October 1987, Black History Month has since morphed into a big cultural and political event to highlight the historical and contemporary contribution of black Britons.
Continue reading...Photos dating back to 1800s made free to allow telling of black history stories beyond enslavement and colonisation
A collection of almost 30,000 rarely seen images of the black diaspora in the UK and the US, dating from the 19th century to the present, has been launched as part of an educational initiative to raise awareness of the history of black people in the UK.
The Black History & Culture Collection includes more than 20 categories of images including politics, hair, education, female empowerment and LGBTQ+.
Continue reading...Veronica Ryan creates UK’s first permanent artwork dedicated to people affected by the scandal
The first permanent artwork to honour the Windrush generation in the UK has been unveiled in the east London borough of Hackney, as councils across the country kick off the first day of Black History Month.
The work, created by the artist Veronica Ryan, is one of two permanent sculptures that symbolise the council’s respect and commitment to the Windrush generation and their legacy and contribution to the area. The second, by Thomas J Price, will be unveiled next spring.
Continue reading...From Black Panther to Black Lives Matter, I’ve felt a new sense of identity and pride, that I will pass on to my children
Growing up, I envied those who understood their mother’s native language. Speaking it was admirable, but the very act of comprehension was a beautiful thing to witness. From afar it seemed like a love language, something intimate and secretive spoken between families – it suggested a bond, a closeness that seemed impenetrable.
As a child, it didn’t necessarily bother me that I was unable to understand my family’s mother tongue (my parents are Nigerian, and the language they used in our household was robustly and loudly Yoruba). I was too busy navigating all the complexities of being an adolescent to really notice that my parents actively chose to only speak English to their five children. It’s also fair to say that when I was growing up in the late 1980s and early 90s, I had no friends of a similar background to me – most were from the Caribbean. Certainly, Africa wasn’t deemed a cool destination, so that part of myself was mostly folded away.
Continue reading...As the UK’s leading African film festivals showcase the past decade’s classics online, we pick 20 great landmarks from the continent’s dazzling movie-making history
The film’s director, Apolline Traoré, was born in Burkina Faso and educated in the US before returning to the country of her birth and working with Idrissa Ouédraogo. Borders is her third feature, a road movie about four very different women travelling across beautifully evoked landscapes from Senegal to Nigeria, having melodramatic, shocking or comic episodes on the hot and dusty road.
Continue reading...In 1962, the young photographer Howard Grey captured the last of the Windrush immigrants as they disembarked from the boat train at Waterloo station in London. The extraordinary pictures he took, however, were not processed for more than five decades until advances in scanning technology brought the underexposed negatives to life. Here the photographer talks us through some of his favourite images from the three films he exposed.
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