This year, Black History Month is being celebrated around the theme of ‘Reclaiming
Narratives’, embracing and taking control of stories, celebrating heritage and ensuring the
voices of people of colour are heard.
The reality is, even in one of the most culturally diverse nations on the planet children’s
education continues to primarily be focused on Britain when it comes to history. Rather, for centuries in Western civilisation the history of people of POC backgrounds
simply hasn’t been deemed important enough to record. On the contrary, the contribution of
people of colour has been heavily whitewashed. Black History Month not only serves as an
point in the year at which to celebrate the heavily-undermined heritage of people of colour in
the United Kingdom but also as an opportunity to question why we even need one month
simply to honour the backgrounds of a large part of our society in the first place, and why
celebrating and taking active steps to understand and recognise one another still isn’t
commonplace.
In our capital city, 46% of people are of Black and Minority Ethnicities, compared to 14% of
England as a whole.
It is crucial that we know the stories and facts of people of colour in the UK to understand the double standards and roots of racism – which continue to heavily divide us. From the
perspective of POC, growing up without positive role models can go as far as to chip away atone’s self-esteem. For many of us, the names of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Maya Angelou are very familiar. But do the majority of us know about Harriet Tubman, the runaway slave who returned to the Deep South 13 times to rescue and emancipate over 70 slaves? As Ateh Jewel writes to Glamour Magazine, in honour of Black History Month.
Closer to the UK, we have British composer, actor and writer who was born in West Africa Charles Ignatius Sancho. We must ask ourselves why we don’t know more about these figureheads in history.
Discrimination itself is often conceptually understood but do the majority of us understandhow it ends up happening, and how prejudices form?
Black History Month 2024 is set to be a transformative year, and you can be a part of it. Educate yourself and strive to understand the importance of black history. In a world so dominated by division, learning is the most powerful vehicles we have to bring each other closer together.
Written by Sacha, a Supernova from Bridport group