This yr’s UK Black Historical past Month theme, Proud To Be, is about celebrating the Black expertise. As a distributed firm with workers world wide, together with the UK, we consider that the extra views we embrace, and the extra we find out about our teammates, the higher we’re at partaking and serving to our world neighborhood.
This October, we encourage people and organizations to study extra about Black historical past, heritage, and tradition within the UK. “Black British history is British history. It’s more than a month; it is interwoven in everything,” says Ama, a colleague primarily based in Scotland. “We have changed landscapes in education, law, politics, work, and equality for all within the UK.” Black historical past is deeply embedded in UK tradition, says Ama, from establishments — just like the Nationwide Well being Service — to music, sports activities, artwork, media, and common tradition.
Fascinated with studying extra? We’ve compiled a listing of employees suggestions:
- web sites and organizations on WordPress
- books, movies, and tv by Black thinkers and creators within the UK
- running a blog and website-building instruments
Discover these sources this month — or bookmark them for studying and inspiration anytime.
#PoweredByWordPress studying sources
From the official UK Black Historical past Month hub to the web site of the Stephen Lawrence Day Basis, these sources are nice beginning factors in your journey.
Black Historical past Month 2021
All yr lengthy, Black Historical past Month publishes information, options, profession and schooling info, and occasion listings throughout the UK. Make it your first useful resource for getting educated and concerned.
Black Heroes Basis
Targeted on youth schooling and development, this London-based neighborhood charity raises Black cultural consciousness of most of the people, educating and uplifting youth specifically. The muse envisions a world the place Black heroes are acknowledged, revered, and celebrated.
Stephen Lawrence Day
The 1993 homicide and case of Stephen Lawrence — an 18-year-old from southeast London who was killed in an unprovoked racial assault whereas ready for the bus — led to a serious shift within the UK in attitudes about racism, the legal justice system, and the function of the police. The Stephen Lawrence Day Basis continues to inform Stephen’s story, affords sources for educators and organizers, and works towards making a simply society.
The Nationwide Archives
The Nationwide Archives is the official archive and writer of the UK authorities, documenting over 1000 years of historical past. Researchers can browse the Black British historical past part of the web site for a information on social and political historical past within the twentieth century, a lot of weblog and multimedia content material, and data referring to British residents of African and African-Caribbean descent.
Black Historical past Walks
Partnering with museums, faculties, and different establishments, Black Historical past Walks affords a dozen strolling excursions all through London, public month-to-month academic talks, and video programs and sources on Black historical past. Its various programming targets a variety of individuals each in individual and on-line, from college students to vacationers to companies.
A learn & watch syllabus
Searching for e book, TV, and movie suggestions about Black historical past and tradition within the UK — or by Black students and creators — however aren’t certain the place to start out? Listed below are a few of our nonfiction, fiction, and movie and tv picks.
Nonfiction
- Black and British: A Forgotten Historical past: Printed to accompany the BBC Two collection famous within the Movie and Tv part beneath, this must-read e book by historian David Olusoga examines the shared historical past between the British Isles and the individuals of Africa.
- 100 Nice Black Britons: On this e book, Patrick Vernon and Angelina Osborne — founders of the 100 Nice Black Britons marketing campaign — have a good time Black British historical past and acknowledge key Black Britons who’ve helped to form Nice Britain.
- Brit(ish): On Race, Identification and Belonging: A hybrid of historical past and memoir, Afua Hirsch’s e book “reveals the identity crisis at the heart of Britain today” and explores a nation in denial about its imperial previous and current.
- This Is Why I Resist: Don’t Outline My Black Identification: In a e book that calls for basic change, activist and lawyer Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu examines the roots of racism and anti-Blackness and requires significant motion.
- The Louder I Will Sing: A Story of Racism, Riots and Redemption: In 1985, when Lee Lawrence was a toddler, his mom was wrongfully shot by police throughout a raid on their house in Brixton. Printed greater than three a long time later, his memoir chronicles what it was prefer to develop up as a younger Black man in England and the way that day influenced his household.
- In Black and White: A Younger Barrister’s Story of Race and Class in a Damaged Justice System: Experiencing a tragedy as a teen pushed Alexander Wilson to grow to be a barrister — a kind of lawyer — so she might make a distinction inside an unjust system. Her debut e book describes her expertise as a mixed-race girl in a subject missing in various illustration.
- Natives: Race and Class within the Ruins of Empire: On this e book, creator and hip-hop artist Akala blends biography and private expertise with an examination of race and sophistication throughout subjects — from schooling to politics and the police to the far proper.
- Misfits: A Private Manifesto: This “coming-to-power manifesto” by Michaela Coel — the actress, author, and creator of I Could Destroy You — builds on an inspiring keynote deal with she delivered on the 2018 Edinburgh Worldwide Tv Competition about resilience, empathy, storytelling, and rising up in public housing in East London.
- What a Time to Be Alone: The Slumflower’s Information to Why You Are Already Sufficient: On this illustrated self-help information, creator and influencer Chidera Eggerue, also called the Slumflower, writes about self-love, empowerment, and creating your personal narrative. The e book additionally consists of Igbo proverbs from Eggerue’s Nigerian mom.
I like to recommend David Olusoga’s Black and British: A Forgotten Historical past. It’s a extremely necessary e book, with new updates on the Windrush scandal and Black Lives Matter from the UK perspective.
—Victoria Jones, UK
Fiction
- White Tooth: Printed over 20 years in the past, Zadie Smith’s debut novel focuses on the lives of two unlikely mates and their households in London. Thought-about a “modern classic of multicultural Britain,” the e book is a window into the immigrant expertise.
- Lady, Lady, Different: Weaving a dozen narratives about totally different individuals throughout ages, backgrounds, and professions, Bernardine Evaristo examines subjects of identification, race, and womanhood in trendy Britain.
- Love in Color: This assortment of brief tales by creator Bolu Babalola reimagines historical love tales and folktales from world wide, from Greek myths to Center Jap legends, and facilities Black girls and powerful feminine characters.
- Queenie: This sharp and humorous novel by Candice Carty-Williams is in regards to the lifetime of Queenie Jenkins, a mid-twenties British Jamaican girl residing in London who’s struggling to search out her place on the planet.
- Such a Enjoyable Age: One night time, a grocery store safety guard sees a younger Black girl, Emira Tucker, within the aisles with a white toddler. The guard accuses Emira of kidnapping, when in actuality she’s the babysitter. On this novel, Kiley Reid takes a have a look at race, class, energy dynamics, and privilege.
I’ve tremendously valued Zadie Smith’s work. Her novels — particularly White Tooth — are effectively crafted and provide a mixture of comedy and realism that always focuses on social class in England. Her essays are issues of magnificence. She’s value a learn, irrespective of the month.
Daryl L. L. Houston, USA
Movie and Tv
- Black and British: A Forgotten Historical past: This BBC Two collection by David Olusoga, composed of 4 episodes, seems to be on the relationship between Britain and other people of African origins, slavery, and Black British identification within the twentieth century.
- Small Axe: On this anthology of 5 movies, 12 Years a Slave filmmaker Steve McQueen brings to life the tales of West Indian immigrants in London from the Sixties to Nineteen Eighties.
- Black Energy: A British Story of Resistance: This hour-and-a-half documentary consists of interviews with activists concerned in Britain’s Black Energy motion within the late Sixties. (The BBC’s bigger assortment of programming for Black Historical past Month can be value searching.)
- I Could Destroy You: Michaela Coel’s latest Emmy-winning drama collection is a few promising younger author, Arabella, who’s sexually assaulted one night time whereas out along with her mates. The present explores consent and trauma, and stars a primarily Black British solid.
- Black and Welsh: Cardiff-born filmmaker Liana Stewart brings collectively individuals from throughout Wales to spotlight its multiculturalism and to share tales from neighborhood members about what it means to be Black and Welsh.
- Hair Energy: Me and My Afro: Irish author and broadcaster Emma Dabiri has intimate conversations with each women and men about their hair, digging into how and why Afro and Black hair is a vital and complicated side of the Black expertise.
- Highlife: This premium actuality TV present follows the lives of eight profitable, glamorous British West Africans and depicts a distinct angle of Black life within the UK.
- Desmond’s: Initially operating from 1989 to 1994, this sitcom was set in a barbershop in Peckham, southeast London, and featured a largely Black British Guyanese solid.
Weblog and web site sources
Lean on these sources, instruments, and organizations throughout UK Black Historical past Month — and past — to publish content material in your website that’s becoming in your viewers, or to attach with and collaborate with others.
- Inventory illustration libraries like Black Illustrations.
- Various inventory images websites, together with free sources like Nappy, Picnoi, and CreateHER Inventory, and premium picture collections at TONL, Eye for Ebony, Mocha Inventory, and Uncooked Pixel. (Disabled and Right here, a free inventory picture library with images of disabled Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour (BIPOC), additionally publishes an interview collection with disabled BIPOC writers and activists.)
- Organizations on the intersection of tech and variety, like UKBlackTech, which helps various innovation and fairness, transparency, and illustration throughout the UK; and TechUP Girls, a tech coaching program for individuals from underrepresented communities.
- Instructing sources throughout age teams, together with a Black Historical past Month useful resource pack, a BBC collection of brief movies for major and secondary college academics, and The Instances Academic Complement’s Black experiences hub.
Would you prefer to advocate an internet site on WordPress, writing or media by a Black thinker or creator within the UK, or one other useful resource? Inform us within the feedback.