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City’s pride in its Black heritage
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By MIA O’HARE
ome to the oldest Black community in Europe, Liverpool is celebrating Black History Month with free events at the city’s museums. Throughout the month of October there will be talks, workshops and performances at the International Slavery Museum, Martin Luther King Jr Building and the Museum of Liverpool. Black History Month has been marked annually in the United Kingdom every October since 1987. The aim is to use the month as a chance to remember important events and people from the black community. It puts focus onto the history of the African diaspora, which saw the historic movement of people from Africa to the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In particular, the descendants of the Africans who were enslaved and taken to America in the Atlantic slave trade.
The International Slavery Museum is putting on a range of events for all ages. Talks will be given throughout the month including presentations on British boxing, lost childhoods and about the black soldiers at the battle of Waterloo. During half term, the museum will be encouraging children to take part in musical events as part of their ‘Celebrating Sound’ theme. Every Wednesday the education team will be on hand throughout the museums to talk about the collections and objects on display. October also sees Anti-Slavery Day marked on October 18. The day was created by a UK Act of Parliament to raise awareness of modern slavery and to inspire people to eliminate it today. The day will be celebrated at the International Slavery Museum with a Hands of Change event. People are encouraged to bring their own artwork to place on big hands in the museum. Dr Richard Benjamin, Head of the International Slavery Museum, said: “The International Slavery Museum
not only covers transatlantic slavery and modern forms of slavery and enslavement but African and Black history more generally too. “These subjects should be obligatory aspects of world and British history, but we are not there quite yet, so in the meantime, let’s get behind October Black History Month events nationwide.” He said: “I wonder how many people know that Black boxers were banned from becoming British boxing champions until as recently
as 1947, or about the contribution of Black soldiers at Waterloo? “Anti-Slavery day also falls at this ime - a time to raise awareness of modern slavery and to inspire people to eliminate it.” The Museum of Liverpool is showcasing the contribution the Black community have made to the city through a history trail. Visitors can explore the museum’s collection of artifacts and displays whilst being aware of the contribution Liverpool has played to Black history.
‘Everyone should have the same chances’
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By LAUREN HUGHES ace and learning came under the spotlight in an online discussion to talk about the importance of education and the significance that it has in changing race relations within the UK. The event was created and organised by Urban Circle, an independent youth arts organisation, in just three months after a survey found that education was important to the tackling of racism. It was hosted by their Youth Justice Minister Andrew Ogun and Umulkhayr Mohamed. The first speaker, Dr. Foluke Adebisi, a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Bristol, began firstly by reading a self published poem titled ‘Time and Place’ in which she begins by referencing the death of George Floyd and speaking on injustice. Adebisi, talks mainly about the importance of decolonising the educational system and explores the relationship between race and power structures. “The most decolonisation efforts that are going
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on in UK higher education fall short of actual decolonisation, sometimes they are in direct opposition with decolonisation because they are driven by colonial logics.” she said. The second speaker was Abu-Bakr Madden Al-Shabazz, historian and comparative Sociologist who has led the Black History Studies at Cardiff University for nine years and is now Black History officer for Race Council Cymru. He gave a brief overview of black British history and where racial problems stem from, saying: “Don’t be surprised when you see the amount of black children that are failing in our British Schools.” “The educational system needs to change in order for white society, Welsh and British Society, to acknowledge and to realise and recognise that we are people of substance, we are people who created Empires and Civilisations, and we created university systems and college systems, way before Europeans did.” He continued: “Every pupil should have the same chances; teachers should have the same expecta-
tions for every student.” The third and final speaker, Rapper, Activists and Author of the 2018 memoir NATIVES, Akala, began talking about his own personal experience with the educational system, briefly touching on subjects mentioned in his book. “GCSE entry should be based solely on SAT scores. There should be external blind monitoring of the way children are assessed in the classroom. University placements should not be related to predicted grades, they should be based solely on how you score in your final A level grades, because what happens is private schools massively overestimate, state schools massively underestimate. “The whole system is rigged in favour of mediocre posh kids”. The event is just one of many within Black History Month bringing awareness to the lives and experiences of black people, whilst also offering food for thought on how the British education system is teaching children of different ethnicities, race and class backgrounds and bringing to attention the structural discrepancies that need to change.
