Should we still have Black History Month? Part 1

With many thanks to Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, since 1987, the UK has been celebrating BHM in the month of October. Schools up and down the country usually put up displays and encourage students to do a piece of writing, usually focusing on Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, or others of that ilk. Should BHM continue to be as it is, or should it be, as many would like it to be, integrated into average history lessons and curricula?

Currently in most schools, history lessons focus on a certain selections of history. We in England learn about the Tudors, the Victorians, the two World Wars, how the Allies triumphed, and how the Holocaust was one of the worst events in history. We even learn bits about the French Revolution and the Middle Ages including the Black Death and the Magna Carta. Sure there have been Black people living in Britain for hundreds of years, they played a part in the two World Wars and struggled for equality, but is that any reason to introduce more Black History? Isn’t one month enough?

At the end of the day, England is a White Protestant country. Don’t let Stratford Westfield or Peckham fool you, of the 80 million people living in Britain, Black people only make up 3.5% (1.8million people). To put that number into perspective, you can fit almost all of the UK’s Black people into the built up areas of West Yorkshire. How then on that basis can such a small minority justify changing how history is taught to everyone in the UK? Majority rules right?

Black History Month was often a time growing up where more questions were directed to you, and if you didn’t know an answer, you were likely to be laughed at during break, ‘I thought you were black’. It was unwanted attention and pressure to pay extra attention and raise your hand a little bit more. It wasn’t a time of pride, it was a time of wondering why people were looking at you more than usual. The content of the lessons were a welcome break from hearing about Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Sir Walter Raleigh. Growing older, and reflecting on the things we were told during BHM, questions begin to form.

There is a heavy focus on the 1960‘s Civil Rights movement in America and slavery, in comparison to mention about the Empire Windrush in 1948. I remember going to history class one day, and the teacher told us to stack tables on top of each other, and line them in a semi-circle around the classroom. We were then instructed to lie, one under and one on top of the tables to simulate how slaves were transported to Brazil, America and the Caribbean. As much as it was ‘interesting’ and somewhat informative, growing older, we start to realise that these few events only show a particular selection of Black History. For example, Brazil is hardly ever mentioned as the country which received the most slaves from West Africa. Black British history? John Blanke, Mike Fuller or John Edmonstone? Never.

First of all, the way BHM is at the moment, it lumps together African, African-American and Afro-Caribbean history into one. There is no real distinction between the many differences between these different groups, it’s a broad and fragmented history or people with dark skin. It doesn’t take into account that the experiences in Black America, were and still are very different from the Caribbean, Brazilian, British and African. But of course in one month there is no time to get into things into detail. Really? No time?

We spend 2 years studying for GCSE History exams, but it seems as though it’s more important to remember how many wives Henry VIII murdered, than how many people perished on those slave ships in the Middle Passage. Knowing other trivia like the disgusting ‘Queen Elizabeth I had 1 bath a year’ is absolutely pointless and currently trumps other relevant facts and events such as the evidence that the palace in the Kenyan city of Gedi had indoor toilets and piped water controlled by taps. Even if these facts aren’t deemed relevant, wouldn’t time being best served by learning about why Britain has become so multicultural, and the reasons behind many people wanting to Keep Britain White?

End of Part 1…

Part 2 here

Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai – (1 April 1940 – 25 Sept 2011)

Born and raised in Kenya, Maathai was selected for the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr Foundation program, which allowed her to study in the United States. She obtained her undergraduate  and masters degrees in biology and moved back to Kenya in 1966 where she became a research assistant in the microanatomy at the School of Veterinary Medicine at University College of Nairobi. In 1971 she became the first Eastern African woman to receive her Ph.D in veterinary anatomy.

She went on to help establish the Green Belt Movement in 1977, a movement which has planted over 51 million trees, and trained over 30,000 women and helping them earn income and preserve land and resources. In Oct 1989, she opposed the proposal of a 60 story complex in Uhuru Park much to the anger of the Kenyan government, but eventually won, with the project being cancelled in January 1990.

She helped to promote free and fair elections in Kenya in 1992, but was again opposed by the government. She went into hiding but was allowed to leave after pressure on the Kenyan government from Mikail Gorbachevs environmental organisation Green Cross International.
In 1999, she planted a tree in protest of a government plan to privatize large areas of land in the Karura Forest, but was attacked. In the international outrage that ensued, President Daniel Moi banned the allocation of all public land. In 2001, the government again planned to take forest land and give it to supports, when Maathai (who of course protested), was arrested and then released. She was arrested and released without charge a few months later, after planting more trees in Uhuru Park.
The disappointment of failing in the 1997 elections didn’t faze her, as she ran again in 2002, but this time was appointed Assistant Minister in the Ministry for Environment and Natural resources after winning 98% of the vote. Her crowning achievement came in 2004, when she became the first African woman, and the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She was elected as the first president of the African Unions Economic, Social and Cultural Council in 2005, and was one of 8 flag bearers at the 2006 Winter Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.

When she succumbed to ovarian cancer in 2011, the world mourned a woman who risked her life, to fight not only for the environment, but for freedom. She represents a strong African woman, who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. She was actually thrown in jail for 6 months after critising a judge. Why was she in front of a judge? Because her husband divorced her, by Maathais reasoning that she was “too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn and too hard to control”. She was released after 3 days when she agreed to apologise.

“In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.” – Wangari Maathai

#Amen