Black British history deserves more than just a month

LONDON:

Black History Month has almost become a tokenistic ceremonial annual event to celebrate this country’s historically marginalised black population. Although I don’t necessarily believe in it being scrapped, I feel black history should already be embedded in the school curriculum. Black life resonated with the episodes of everyday individuals throughout major epochs of this country, from the Tudors to Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Instead, from my experiences, the school curriculum chooses to discuss the trans-Atlantic slave trade and US civil rights.

With the mass immigration of Commonwealth migrants in the post-war period, the school system sought to assimilate these children with a promotion of multiculturalism. The election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 paved the way for new radical changes with her hopes of a ‘classless’ and ‘colour-blind’ British society. Above all, the assault on public education was notable. The New Right sought to suppress multicultural education and the egalitarian reforms of the Education Act 1944.

Seemingly, ethnocentrism began to dominate this education system.

Fast-forward almost 40 years, and the vigorous legacies of Thatcherism are still apparent. The promotion of ‘British values’ under the Conservatives-Lib Dems coalition claimed that schools should promote students’ spiritual, moral, social, and cultural (SMSC) development. Guidance on promoting British values was published for schools in November 2014. Lord Josh Nash, former parliamentary undersecretary of state for school system, stated, “We want every school to promote the basic British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those of different faiths and beliefs.”

Black History Month is a small gesture to keep us content, or, at least less disappointed and angry. It is a travesty (that) we know more about the Montgomery bus boycott than the Bristol boycott and that we’re all not taught the stories of the Mangrove Nine and the Black Supplementary School movement.

Professor Hakim Adi’s new canon, African and Caribbean People in Britain, was published last month. Professor Kehinde Andrews says it is the “final nail in the coffin” for those who claim that black life in Britain is just with the Windrush.

Adi shows how black history is part of British history and illustrates Peter Fryer’s point that “Black people were in Britain before the English came.” They show a black presence in Britain from the third century AD. However, the discoveries of ‘Cheddar man’ can place this existence as far back as 10,000 BC.

This is a very different black and British history to the one that begins with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and centres a white-led abolition movement. It does more damage than good. Britain’s inability to confront our history of colonialism and racial capitalism has brought us to the epoch where when we try facing this history, we are dismissed as liberals or woke lefties.

Moreover, black history almost feels eradicated from the curriculum. The then Secretary for Education, Michael Gove, made teaching black history optional in 2014. Thence, as the Institute of Race Relations titled ‘How Working-class Black Youth are Criminalised in the English Education System’ reveals, 11 per cent of GCSE students study modules discussing black students’ presence in Britain.

I can see how damaging it can be to the psyche of everyday people. The two World Wars are often constructed from the Eurocentric position of Allies (Britain, France, Russia, USA) versus the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan). In fact, it was these empires that fought against one another. For Britain, black and brown bodies in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean fervently signed up to defend the motherland, but their voices remain eradicated from history.

When I was studying for my master’s in modern history, my classmate couldn’t fathom the plausibility of studying these conflicts outside of a European perspective. In fact, the first shot fired in the First World War occurred after the British invasion of the German-occupied Togoland in 1914.

Moving forward, I have hope for the education system and that changes will occur to make the curriculum more inclusive. The current ethnocentrism only reinforces a racial hierarchy that places Western culture (and Britishness) at the epicentre. The works of Lavinya Stennett and The Black Curriculum, with their campaigns for social change, show us that this is possible.

Black British history deserves more than just a month. Even within that month, the emphasis tends to be placed upon African American history and culture. Instead of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X, let’s look to Paul Stephenson, Roy Hackett, Darcus Howe, and Altheia Jones-LeCointe. Black history is part of British history, and our stories and experiences are present throughout the history of these isles.

Montel Gordon is a James McCune Smith PhD scholar at the University of Glasgow researching race and education. He is also a freelance journalist. Please send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.