kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
None that I can remember.
What black history were you taught at school?
- Thread starter Lord Camomile
- Start date
Yep not much. A bit about the Atlantic slave trade at primary school. The only other history I recall we did then was ancient Greece. Secondary school history was industrial revolution, no GCSE history, rather something called Intagrated Humanities. The history component of which covered Ireland, Cromwell and that era. A level was 19c British and 20C European.
story
Changing the facts
Incas and Mayans and Conquistadors, Slave trade, Scramble for Africa, the Raj and Partition, Botany Bay and the subsequent decimation of Aborigines.
No actual history of those people or places, just what white people did to them.
History of the UK, including Irish history, all the kings and queens (had to learn them in order and by rote). Then shit tonnes of European history in excruciating detail, all the kings and queens, all the wars, the Crusades, the Holy Roman Empire, all the Napoleons, the Renaissance, the Borgias and Medicis, and then back to Britain with the industrial revolution, empire building, WW1&2. We did cover, briefly and in passing, Black soldiers.
The school was pretty hot on history, deliberately feeding into universities and journalism (three of my contemporaries at school are now on the telly and radio doing front line journalism; one is a war correspondent). We had two different teachers, one was an older woman who had a mind that captured and delivered stuff in fantastic detail, the other was a tiny young Indian woman with beautiful long hair and a resonant voice who - thinking back on it - gave me a sense of the unspoken and untold behind the story. Remembering her now, there seemed to be a solemnity in her delivery, and gaps when she’d be quiet and there was stuff behind the silence that was kinda portentous. Made me curious to know more. I nearly did go on to do history as a degree (the school certainly wanted me to) but I absolutely did not want to do any more schooling at that point in my life “I can go back to school but I can’t go back to being 18”.
No actual history of those people or places, just what white people did to them.
History of the UK, including Irish history, all the kings and queens (had to learn them in order and by rote). Then shit tonnes of European history in excruciating detail, all the kings and queens, all the wars, the Crusades, the Holy Roman Empire, all the Napoleons, the Renaissance, the Borgias and Medicis, and then back to Britain with the industrial revolution, empire building, WW1&2. We did cover, briefly and in passing, Black soldiers.
The school was pretty hot on history, deliberately feeding into universities and journalism (three of my contemporaries at school are now on the telly and radio doing front line journalism; one is a war correspondent). We had two different teachers, one was an older woman who had a mind that captured and delivered stuff in fantastic detail, the other was a tiny young Indian woman with beautiful long hair and a resonant voice who - thinking back on it - gave me a sense of the unspoken and untold behind the story. Remembering her now, there seemed to be a solemnity in her delivery, and gaps when she’d be quiet and there was stuff behind the silence that was kinda portentous. Made me curious to know more. I nearly did go on to do history as a degree (the school certainly wanted me to) but I absolutely did not want to do any more schooling at that point in my life “I can go back to school but I can’t go back to being 18”.
story
Changing the facts
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
Akyaaba Addai-Sebo: the shocking conversation that led him to start UK Black History Month
(Source: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
Thank goodness for this man.
(Source: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
Thank goodness for this man.
equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
I am pretty sure that I got taught none at school. I did History at GCSE and the syllabus was something dull and stopped just before or just after the industrial Revolution, plus was limited mainly to England (they claimed GB but there was nothing about the potato famine in Ireland or the highland clearances in Scotland, or the rise of mining in Wales). Mostly history of agriculture, history of public health, history of education, a bit about early transition from farming to factories but nothing global and certainly nothing about the role of Britain in the slave trade or emigration/immigration policies.
I passed the exam, barely. I was bored for two years. I would have welcomed learning about civil rights matches, freedom schools, slave trade and abolition, Irish history, Scottish history, Welsh history, you name it. What I do know I have learned through my own reading in later life.
I passed the exam, barely. I was bored for two years. I would have welcomed learning about civil rights matches, freedom schools, slave trade and abolition, Irish history, Scottish history, Welsh history, you name it. What I do know I have learned through my own reading in later life.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
My school years were in Canada, so there were some basics around the US civil war and the Underground Railroad up to Canada for escaped slaves. Not a lot, though. Upper Canada passed an anti slavery bill in 1793, so there's not a lot to cover in terms of that - slavery had been banned for most of the colony's history. In terms of who had the most historical mistreatment, we covered the natives more.
mentalchik
"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit."
same
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
Black history at school - Wilberforce ended slavery. Nowt else. Crap.
Epona
Sonic: 1 Nov 2006 - 8 Jan 2022
We had one history lesson (not nearly enough) about slavery.
Also in primary school sometimes did projects where we learned a bit about African history - nothing to do with recent history or other ethnic groups.
I grew up and went to school in a rural area that was 99.9% white btw (at least from the age of 5, where I had been beforehand was a little more diverse), so it was very much well meaning liberal white people teaching white kids about stuff (which tbf is probably better than nothing), rather than hearing about any lived experience.
Also in primary school sometimes did projects where we learned a bit about African history - nothing to do with recent history or other ethnic groups.
I grew up and went to school in a rural area that was 99.9% white btw (at least from the age of 5, where I had been beforehand was a little more diverse), so it was very much well meaning liberal white people teaching white kids about stuff (which tbf is probably better than nothing), rather than hearing about any lived experience.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
Don't recall being taught anything about black history at school. Vaguely recall 1066, Vikings (made a diorama type thing), industrial revolution, Lowry, and there was an Edwardian? Victorian? day when we had to write with ink pens and wear sort of apron dresses - there might also have been 'mob caps'?
I remember my mate telling me that his son asked the school library if they had The Communist Manifesto and was told the question was 'inappropriate'.
I don't recall black history being taught in school but I imagine it's higher on the list of priorities than Marx.
I don't recall black history being taught in school but I imagine it's higher on the list of priorities than Marx.
Boris Sprinkler
Dont be scared
We had an Irish history teacher. Who knew his stuff, as in what had to be included in the curriculum and what was important to know.
So we did the required Civil rights bit.
He showed our class pictures of Emmet Til.
That made an impact.
So we did the required Civil rights bit.
He showed our class pictures of Emmet Til.
That made an impact.
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
Is the "massive improvement" connected in any way to this?:
Black history lessons to be made mandatory in Welsh schools.
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
One way of doing it:
Handsworth pupils highlight veteran's fight against racism
(Source: BBC)
98 year-old Prince Albert Jacob who joined the Royal Air Force in 1943
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
I went to schools for kids of US military personnel and by the early 1970s, they started teaching us about prominent Black American figures like Crispus Attucks, George Washington Carver, Booker T Washington and Harriet Tubman but the names of W.E.B Dubois, Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, Langston Hughes and others were omitted. Slavery was skimmed over, and the slave revolts weren't mentioned at all.
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
An update:
Closure of African history master’s faces legal challenge
The appeal for funding for the proposed legal action may be found here
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
Caribbean Worldwide War II veteran celebrates 100th birthday
(Source: Ralph Ottey)
100 year-old Ralph Ottey who joined the Royal Air Force in 1944
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
Caribbean Worldwide War II veteran celebrates 100th birthday
(Source: Ralph Ottey)
100 year-old Ralph Ottey who joined the Royal Air Force in 1944
The 100-year-old Jamaican veteran who made Lincolnshire his home
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
A bit on the slave trade. Nothing else.
GarveyLives
Well-Known Member
In a sign of the 'progress' that is being made, it will be increasingly difficult for those who did not learn anything at school to learn anything in higher education:
UK university cuts threaten to ‘wipe out’ black scholarship, academics say
Hotel Chocolate
Well-Known Member
I was never taught any black history at school, but I was told by two sisters that Cleopatra was black and that their grandmother had told them so. Which has echoes in a recent so-called documentary about Cleopatra.
Similar threads
