B L A C K H I S T O R Y AWA R E N E S S
Embracing Black History The importance of teaching Britain’s diverse past ago and last year was present at the unveiling of a plaque commemorating post-revolutionary Haitian royalty that lived in our small town in the early 1800s. There are heiresses and radicals, domestic servants and sailors. If you start looking in your local area, I guarantee you will find some illuminating stories. I believe it is vital to know how our small island is linked to the whole world. Whether it’s ayahs in the local big house, who never went home, or the small boys who were brought here as fashion accessories and grew up to be gardeners, musicians or riding school instructors. Black history shouldn’t just be a separate month - it’s part of the fabric of our island’s story.
Hello, I’m Catherine Johnson, an award-winning children’s writer who’s written over twenty-five books for young readers as well as for TV, radio and film. I have always loved stories and began writing historical fiction to make a space for me and other British young people who felt like we were outside our wonderful island’s story. Even so, I honestly wish that Black History Month didn’t exist. Let me explain. When I grew up in the late ‘60s, history was interesting, but it existed in a different space, one summed up by Quality Street tin lids or kings and queens. It was what we did at school, what I read in my R. J. Unstead and what I sometimes caught on family TV, including a few Leon Garfield adaptations. I was born in London, but neither of my parents were Londoners. Both had a deep sense of history: my mothers’ family were Welsh-speaking and my father came from Jamaica and could recite more Romantic poems than most. While I loved British history, I never felt part of it. In an ideal world, Black History Month would be redundant, as it would be embedded all yearround. Black British History is all our history all the time and should be taught as such; from Beachy Head Woman, through Roman Centurions in Vindolanda, to Tudor trumpeters and Georgian boxers, to veterans of Waterloo, Chartists and nurses. We have been here for a very long time. Black history is relevant all over Britain, not only in our big cities. I moved to the coast over ten years
CATHERINE JOHNSON Author www.catherinejohnson.co.uk A U T U M N 2 0 2 5 | E D U C AT I O N C H O I C E S M AG A Z I N E | 2 7