Black History Month

Are you celebrating Black History Month 2011?

If you are celebrating Black History Month this October please let us know what you are doing so we can share this with other schools.

Black History Month, October 2011 BHM is celebrated in October in the UK and promotes knowledge of the positive contributions of people of the African Diaspora to British society, to world history and culture. Over 6000 events celebrating BHM take place in the UK throughout the month of October.

Black History Month was started in America in 1926 in recognition that the contributions of people of African descent were not included in most historical accounts. Ensuring that there was a focus for at least a month on the contributions of black people helped to redress this omission.

Schools can celebrate Black History Month with displays around the school and with curriculum linked activities. There are a number of websites with advice, links and sources of information for teachers across the Key Stages. EMTAS can support schools in marking BHM. Attached are links to websites and resources.  

Celebrating BHM will help prepare young people for life and work in a diverse society, it will contribute to making schools more inclusive, improving the experience of all students including BME students. Celebrating BHM helps meet some of schools’ obligations under the Single Equalities Act.

Black History Month

BHM is an excellent opportunity to include some of the omissions from most historical accounts. However many historians and educationalists emphasise the importance of not simply celebrating contributions of Black people for one month of the year, pointing out the importance of developing a curriculum that is culturally inclusive so that references to the contributions of the African Diaspora, and other omitted groups, permeate the curriculum.

EMTAS can provide lists of topics and people for pupils to research during Black History Month and can support schools in developing a more culturally inclusive curriculum.

Links to BHM websites, resources and information

Black History Month – Links and resourceshttp://www.black-history-month.co.uk/sitea/links.html

Real Historieshttp://www.realhistories.org.uk/The Real Histories Directory is a website to help schools teach about cultural diversity. You can find resources about the contributions of Black people.

Black Presencehttp://www.blackpresence.co.uk/Has a section on Black history

The Story of Africa – BBC World Servicehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1624_story_of_africa/index.shtmlHistory of Africa from the dawn of man, African kingdoms, colonisation to independence. Text and audio.

Biography.Com Celebrates Black Historyhttp://www.biography.com/blackhistory/Has Timelines, biographies, videos and photos.

National Archives: Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain 1500-1850 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/

We were there - MoDhttp://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20040524045243/mod.uk/wewerethere/Archived copy of Ministry of Defence exhibition on the contributions of the people of the Commonwealth and, then, Empire to the defence of Britain.

Paul Stevenson and the Bristol Bus BoycottIt was not just in America that segregation existed in public transport. At the time of the Civil Rights Movement in the US the Bristol bus company would not employ black men. http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/content/Leisure-Culture/Local-History-Heritage/bristol-legacy-commission.en

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stephenson_(civil_rights_campaigner)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Bus_Boycott,_1963

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oitqcFdWTP4 There are several videos of Paul Stephenson on Youtube

Joseph Antonio Emidyhttp://www.emidy.com/Composer and violinist, born in West Africa, enslaved, taken to Brazil then Purtugal he became a virtuoso musician in Portugal and ended up living in Falmouth, Cornwall. He was well known in his time in England. Unfortunately none of his compositions are known to have survived.

Black Victorians: Black people in British Art 1800-1900http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/2004/bmag/resources/BlackVictorians.pdfBirmingham Museum resource

The Somali Community in South Wales http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/immig_emig/wales/w_se/article_2.shtmlThe largest Somali community in the UK dating from the end of the 19th century

Education World: Black History Month http://www.educationworld.com/a_special/black_history.shtmlAmerican website with ideas for schools – with African American focus

The History of Black Dance – Victoria and Albert Museumhttp://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/h/black-dance/

Classical Black Musicians and Composershttp://www.blackclassics.co.uk/historical.htm

Norfolk Black History Month 2010http://www.norfolkblackhistorymonth.org.uk/resources/links.html

For Students:BBC 1Xtra – Black History Month 2010 webpage, students can explore by year or by themehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/blackhistory/#years

DisplaysStudents could contribute to a display by asking them to create a collage of Black people who have contributed positively to an area of human development (if students have a strong interest in music ask them to research Black musicians who have been innovative or broken barriers rather than who is the most popular Black musician of the moment).

The library could organise a display of books by black authors and biographies of Black people. This could be supplemented by some posters about Black writers whose books are not in the school library (Pushkin – Russian poet and novelist was of mixed heritage as was Alexander Dumas. Details of some of the first books by Black authors published in England/UK 

AssembliesStudents could make a brief presentation on someone they have chosen to research (list of suggestions available from EMTAS) outlining their contribution and the historical period they lived in. Younger pupils could have a picture and give the name of the person and a very brief description of what they did.

Subjects Across the curriculum it is possible to find examples of people from the African Diaspora who have made a contribution in that field. As a piece of homework students could research examples of positive contributions and throughout the month give opportunities for students to present their findings to the class.

EMTAS can provide starting points for curriculum subjects.

The Ivory Bangle Lady

How long has there been a Black Presence in Britain?

In 2010 an examination of the Roman skeleton of the ‘Ivory Bangle Lady’ from York revealed she had been a wealthy African woman. Academics said this demonstrated that Black people in Britain at the time were not all slaves as was commonly assumed. There were Romans from various provinces of the empire, including Africa and the Middle East living as citizens in Britain. Britain was diverse even in Roman times with Africans occupying high status positions in society.

There is also archaeological evidence demonstrating that Black troops recruited from the Roman Empire in Africa were stationed at Hadrian’s Wall.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/living/article7042984.ece

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/8538888.stm

http://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/Page/ViewCollection.aspx?CollectionId=26

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/black_britons_01.shtml

The Guinea The guinea coin, in use in Britain from the 17th

century, derived its name from the Guinea Coast in West Africa. Much of the gold used for coins in Europe at the time came from Africa. Some guinea coins had a small image of an African elephant indicating the origin of the gold. Britain drew a huge amount of wealth from West Africa. The Royal Africa Company was one of the British companies active in West Africa, they traded in gold, ivory and enslaved people. The wealth generated by slavery and the plantations in the Caribbean helped fund Britain’s Industrial Revolution.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/cm/others/5_guinea_coin_of_charles_ii.aspx

Olaudah Equiano and Ignatious Sancho

Olaudah Equiano and Ignatious Sancho were two prominent Africans living in Britain in the 18th Century. They were the first two Black authors to have work published in Britain. Both were leading figures in the movement for the abolition of the slave trade.

Both men had been slaves, one captured in Africa and sold into slavery the other born on a slave ship.

http://www.blacknet.co.uk/history/Sancho.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/equiano_olaudah.shtml

Alexandre Dumas

Dumas the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the most well known French authors. His works have been translated into more than a hundred languages and there have been at least two hundred films inspired by The Three Musketeers. Dumas was proud of his dual heritage, he was the grandson of a French nobleman and an enslaved Haitian woman.

He is buried alongside two other great French writers Emile Zola and Victor Hugo. There is a Metro station named after him in Paris.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Dumas,_p%C3%A8rehttp://www.online-literature.com/dumas/http://www.dumaspere.com/pages/english/sommaire.html

Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Пу́шкин Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

The father of modern Russian literature, one of Russia’s greatest poets, was of dual heritage. His father’s family were Russian nobles and his maternal great-grandfather, born in Africa, had been a page to the Tsar Peter the Great and had become a General, an engineer and was ennobled.

Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen. He published numerous poems and novels which had a huge influence on Russian literature. Many of his works were made into ballets, songs and operas.

Pushkin was critical of Tsarist policies, this led to periods of internal exile. Pushkin died at a young age from injuries sustained in a duel with a French officer who had insulted his honour.

http://educ.jmu.edu/~pleckesg/Pushkin/http://kirjasto.sci.fi/puskin.htm

Maryse CondééMaryse Condé is an award winning novelist, playwright and academic. She was born in Guadeloupe, a French speaking island in the Caribbean. She left Guadeloupe at an early age to study in France. She attended the Sorbonne where she studied English. She has lived in Britain, Guinea, Ghana, Senegal and the US where she was a Professor of French Literature at Columbia University.

Her best selling work Ségou is a two part historical novel set in the ancient Bambara Empire, in present day Mali, at the point of the intrusion of Islam, Christianity and French colonialism. Most of her works have been translated into English.

In her travels in Africa she met leaders of independence movemensts Kwame Nkrumah and Amilcar Cabral and attended meetings where she met Malcolm X and Che Guevara.

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/conde.htm

http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFicheAilleurs.php?lang=en&id=984

Wole Soyinka Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka is a Nigerian author, poet and playwright. In the mid 1950s Soyinka studied English Literature at Leeds University in England.

Soyinka was an outspoken critic of Nigerian dictators and was imprisoned on several occasions. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986.

In 2004 he was invited by the to deliver the prestigious BBC Reith lectures, he spoke about The Climate of Fear, the reactions to the attack on the World trade centre. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1986/soyinka-bio.html Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott is a poet, playwright and visual artist from St Lucia in the Caribbean. IN 1992 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and the TS Elliot Prize in 2011.

Robert Graves described Walcott as having a better understanding of the inner magic of English than any English contemporaries.

Walcott published his first poem at the age of 14 in a St Lucian newspaper. He has published over 40 volumes of poems and plays. http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1992/walcott-bio.html

GeorgeBridgetowerThe violinist George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower, also known as ‘the Abyssinian Prince’ was born in Biala, Poland. His mother was Eastern European and his father was from the Caribbean, possibly Barbados. He was a child prodigy. At an early age he was travelling around Europe performing at concerts. When he was nine he came to England. The royal family invited him to play in Windsor. The Prince of Wales offered to take him under his patronage, staying in England continuing to play and to study music. Bridgetower became a well-known and respected musician playing in many English cities including Bristol

and Bath. He continued to play in Europe where he met and played with Beethoven who dedicated a sonata to him. http://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/bridge.html

Joseph de Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-GeorgesThe musician, composer Joseph de Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges was born in Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean. He was the son of a French plantation owner and an African woman, a slave on the plantation. When Saint-Georges’ father went back to France Saint-Georges was sent to a military school where he excelled in his studies. He was athletic, a highly skilled swordsman, a skilled horseman, a talented violinist and a composer. He was once described as ‘the Black Mozart’ and was a celebrity, attracting the same sort of attention as footballers and pop stars of our time. Early in his life he was appointed an officer on the Royal Guard, he managed, composed for and played in an orchestra. He became radicalised when visiting England. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, because of his military experience and skill, he was made a colonel in charge of a regiment which enjoyed military success in the revolutionary wars.. http://www.chevalierdesaintgeorge.com/bio_fulltext.htmlhttp://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/Page1.html

Marian Anderson Marian Anderson was an award winning internationally acclaimed classical singer.Marian’s family were devout Christians. Marian joined the junior church choir at the age of six and was soon singing solos and earning money performing at events outside of the church. Her father died when she was a teenager and her mother earned a living as a cleaner. When Marian left school she was refused a place at a music school because she was Black. As an adult Marian helped break barriers for other Black performers. On one occasion she was prevented from performing to an integrated audience at a major concert, because she was Black. This incident attracted national and international attention. She gained the support of President Roosevelt and his wife and performed to a

crowd of 75,000 people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Marian was the first Black person to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She sand at President Kennedy’s inauguration, she was active in the Civil Rights Movement and returned to the Lincoln Memorial to sing at the march where martin Luther King made his ‘I have a dream’ speech. http://www.mariananderson.org/http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/ande-mar.htm

Joseph Antonio Emidy

Born in Guinea and sold into slavery, he was first taken to Brazil then Portugal. In Portugal he became one of the lead violinists at the Lisbon Opera House. He was kidnapped by british sailors and spent several years in the navy. He ended up in Cornwall where he was a music teacher and violinist.

James Buckingham, Cornish born MP for Sheffield and an abolitionist described Emidy:

“An African Negro, named Emidee, who was a general proficient in the art, an exquisite violinist, a good composer, who led at all the concerts of the county and who taught equally well the piano, violin, violoncello, clarionet, and flute.”

Unfortunately none of his compositions survive. http://www.emidy.com/home

Toussaint L’Ouverture François-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture was the leader of the most successful uprising against slavery in the Caribbean.

At the outbreak of the revolution over half of France’s external revenues came from the colony of Haiti. In Haiti enslaved Africans outnumbered white colonists by more than ten to one. In order to maintain their position plantation owners practiced the most brutal form of slavery. Throughout the Americas rebellious slaves would be threatened with being sold off to plantation owners in Haiti.

Uprisings were brutally suppressed, however using his considerable military and political skills Toussaint defeated the French then repelled British and Spanish attempts to take control and reinstate slavery in Haiti. French

revolutionaries had supported the abolition of slavery but under Napoleon there was an attempt to regain control of Haiti and restore slavery. During peace treaty negotiations with the French Toussaint was captured and sent to France where he was imprisoned and died. Haiti went on to be the first independent Black republic. http://www.historywiz.com/toussaint.htmhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/abolitionists_gallery_05.shtml

Walter Tull The first Black British officer and the first Black English professional footballer. Walter was orphaned at an early age, when in care he discovered a passion for football. He played for an amateur team and was spotted by Tottenham Hotspur. He was signed up by the club and received very positive reviews in the press. At a match against Bristol City he was racially abused resulting in him being dropped from the team, his club feared arousing further racial disturbances. He soon transferred to another club.

At the outbreak of WW I he enlisted in the British army. He served in the Somme, his leadership qualities were soon recognised and he rose to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, the first Black commissioned officer in the British Army. He was a brave and gallant officer, popular with those he commanded, he was recommended for the Military Cross. He died in action in the Somme. http://www.thewhitehartexchange.co.uk/html/admin/walter_tull.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Tull

Eugene Jaques BullardEugene left the US as a stowaway on a ship bound for Scotland. He worked as boxer and entertainer, he toured and settled in France. At the out break of WW I he joined the Foreign Legion. He was injured in combat and received one of the highest French military honours for bravery. While convalescing he joined a French air force squadron of volunteer Americans and became a combat pilot. When America joined the war he applied to join the US air force but was turned down because he was Black.

After the war he stayed in Paris. Before the outbreak of WWII he was recruited by French intelligence to spy on German agents. When the Germans were advancing on Paris Bullard had to leave. He re-joined the French army and was again wounded in combat. The French wanted to prevent him from being captured so he was repatriated to the US.

In 1954 the he was one of the three ex-service men invited to Paris to relight the flame to the Unknown Soldier. On his death in the US French officers from the Foreign Legion gave him a funeral with full military honours. Several years

after his death the US Air Force posthumously appointed him as a US Air Force officer. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=705http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/apjinternational/apj-s/2005/3tri05/chivaletteeng.htmlhttp://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_bullard_eugene.html

Josephine Baker Josephine Baker went to France while working as chorus girl in an American show. She stayed in France and soon became the darling of the Paris night scene and one of the most celebrated entertainers in Europe.

After WW II she was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, the highest decoration awarded by the French government, for her work in the French Resistance.

She became an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the US and was present when Dr Martin Luther King delivered his I have a Dream speech in 1963. At her funeral in 1975 twenty thousand people lined the streets as the cortege passed through Paris. She is the only American woman to have been honoured by the French government with a military funeral and a twenty-one gun salute.

Ernest Hemingway described her as "The most sensational woman anybody ever saw, or ever will." Beyoncé has described Josephine Baker as a major influence. http://www.cmgww.com/stars/baker/about/biography.htmlhttp://womenshistory.about.com/od/bakerjosephine/p/josephine_baker.htmhttp://www.sheldonconcerthall.org/bakerhistory.asp

Richard Stokes Elite British regiments such as the Household Cavalry and the Brigade of Guards operated a ‘colour bar’ until the late1960s and until the 1980s the regiments operated a quota system of having no more than two percent of ethnic minority soldiers. Army documents show that the reliability of ‘coloured’ soldiers was questioned.

Richard Stokes was the first Black British guardsman to take part in the ceremonies at Buckingham Palace.

When serving in Northern Ireland he had bananas thrown at him and cigarettes stubbed out in his food, he was called to racist names by his fellow

guardsmen. On the day he arrived in Northern Ireland and went to the mess hall most of the three hundred soldiers in the mess got up and walked out.

Despite these experiences Richard says he misses the comradeship and does not regret his decision to join the army. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5333874.stm

Tuskegee Airmen In WW II the American army was segregated. The Tuskegee Airmen were African American pilots and crews. High level US Air Force officers and politicians objected to the setting up of these units claiming that Black people did not have the capacity to make split second judgements and act rapidly, so vital in combat situations.

The Tuskegee Airmen served with great success and bravery. Their reputation spread and bomber pilots regularly requested the Red Tails of Tuskegee squadrons to escort their bombing raids. http://www.tuskegeeairmen.org/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Airmen

The brief biographies above can be used to start an activity researching and presenting further information. Pupils can create posters or presentations. Students may want to explore other forms such as dance, an imagined conversation between some of the people above, a collage of other images of the contributions of people of the African diaspora.