Black History Month

Debate between Dawn Butler and Bell Ribeiro-Addy

Thursday 22nd October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

We are all extremely proud of the Serjeant at Arms.

I start by congratulating my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) on her powerful opening speech. I hope that there is some pepper soup in her future to help with her cold. I join her in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare), who has, in our time in this place, led this debate on a number of occasions. I also pay tribute to her because earlier this week I read out a list of names and inadvertently missed her off it. She may wonder why this is the fourth time I am apologising. Perhaps it is the death stare she gave me on the day, or perhaps it is how she has looked at me from out the side of her eye ever since. It might be because I cannot allow the idea that I would shadily forget her, of all people. She is my fellow British-Ghanian MP, of whom I am extremely proud.

When we err publicly, we should atone in the same way. I put on record that my hon. Friend has been a huge support to me, particularly in the past few months, as I have dealt with a challenging time as the Member of Parliament for the Arday family. I know her well enough to know that she will look at me from out the side of her eye until at least 2027, which is not too far away, but I hope that this House now knows that she is somebody who I celebrate in my community.

As we celebrate our friends and community members, it is important that we do not lose sight of the dangerous times that we live in. Online hate is rising, and foreign billionaires such as Elon Musk pour time, money and energy into far-right movements, such as the one led by Tommy Robinson. Racism is no longer whispered; it is amplified, monetised and making its way into our politics. That is why this debate is not a nicety, but a necessity.

Despite what some in the Reform party would like to suggest, black Britons are British, our history is British history and our contributions are equal to those of other Britons and equally worthy of celebration. Before the online trolls pile in with the inevitable, “Why do we have Black History Month? What about White History Month?”, I remind them that had they paid attention in school, they would know that the history of other Britons has dominated our curriculum and that happens all throughout the year. We have a Black History Month as just one month to honour those who were clearly written out of our history books. Black History Month is intended to exist until such a time as those Britons are truly incorporated. It is a means to an end. It was never intended to be an end in itself. We say that black history is British history simply as a call to action.

Black History Month was first marked in October 1987, as we have heard repeatedly, and it was specifically done on the 150th anniversary of Caribbean emancipation. It was organised by Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, a Ghanaian-born special projects officer at the Greater London council. He has been trying tirelessly, particularly as we move to the 40-year celebration next year, to get in touch with Ministers, the Mayor of London and others to make sure that he is included in the celebrations. I hope Members have heard that and will encourage that, as he was the person who led on this.

I was pleased to hear the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), saying that black history is British history during her opening speech, because I understand from comments left on my own social media that that is not the view of everybody in the House. I posted a video of me speaking during Black History Month perhaps a couple of years ago, making that specific point that black history is British history. Her colleague commented that that was not the case. They did not make a racist comment, but they made a point about how it was divisive.

On the same post, I received a lot of racist abuse—some of a kind that I had not necessarily seen in that volume before. I had people calling me the N-word, people telling me to eff-off and go back to where I came from, and people sending monkey photographs. All those sorts of things show just how turbocharged things are. The hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) said that things seem to be going backwards, and I think we need to keep an eye on it. As we look forward to the 40-year celebration of Black History Month next year, I hope a lot more effort is put into challenging racism, right from the top in this House.

We have to remember that Black History Month began as an act of resistance, a way to challenge racism and inspire young people, and a way to repair the record. Today it is a fixture in our national calendar, with thousands of events every October. That is why we find that some Members are losing their voice because of all those events every October. It became a fixture not by accident, but because campaigners, activists and educators fought for it, and they still do. They make sure that our young people learn things that we were never taught. They lift up names that would otherwise be forgotten, and they push back against those who profit from dividing our communities.

Every year, however, black Members are forced to play a guessing game. We look on the Order Paper with no idea whether this month we will be honoured with a debate in this Chamber. While I am pleased that this debate is being held in Government time, Black History Month has happened every October since 1987. That means it is almost as old as me and, as my aunt reminded me last week, I am much older than she thought I was. There is absolutely no reason why this debate should not be a permanent fixture, and I hope that the Minister will take that request to the Leader of the House.

We cannot talk about black history without talking about reparations. I say that because the existence of black history is reparatory in itself. I pay tribute to those Members in this House—the first black Members in this House—who made that point repeatedly. There was Bernie Grant MP, who was the first to ask a question in Prime Minister’s questions on it. He was the founder of the UK reparations movement. Our Mother of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), has led many meetings in Parliament on this issue, including when I worked for her. Lord Paul Boateng continues to lead the charge in the other place on the restitution of artefacts and human remains.

My old history teacher, Mr Melvin Smart, passed earlier this year. He said that we study the past to live the present with an eye on the future, and that is just it. Reparations are not meant to be about guilt, but repair; looking at what we did wrong and attempting to fix it. It is not meant just to be about money, but that is what always happens. We talk about it in financial terms, and we talk about paying. We talk about who gets paid and all the things that can easily be slammed down, instead of talking about all the things that we could move forward with.

[Dawn Butler]

I thank my hon. Friend for her incredible conference last week, which saw thousands of people attend, and the debates we had. One of the signs that resonated for me, in terms of reparations, was “First stop the harm”. Does she agree that that is a fundamental part of reparations?

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The idea of reparatory justice is to acknowledge that the reason we have to have a month even to celebrate black history is that we have not addressed the harm. We have not gone about repairing all the things that are wrong, including in our education system. We talk about all the different elements of discrimination that black people face in this country, and that is because we have not gone about repairing those institutions that lead to that discrimination. She is absolutely right about that.

We need to make people understand that reparations cannot possibly just be about money. Money is perhaps the smallest part of it, because there would be no point in giving any individual or any country a whole heap of money if we were not first going to repair the institutions and the relationships, because otherwise things would not change. That is the reality of the situation, and I think people are beginning to realise that. That is why there has been a huge move forward this year with the campaign globally for reparations.

In March, the United Nations General Assembly declared the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans as

“the gravest crime against humanity”.

That was 123 nations declaring that. In Accra, Governments and campaigners have gathered to decide what comes next. The Jamaican Government gave a petition to the King, which has now been referred to the Privy Council. CARICOM—the Caribbean Community—has revised its 10-point plan. In the UK, we had our largest conference ever on reparatory justice, with grassroots campaigners, scholars, parliamentarians and Heads of State speaking, all with one demand: understanding where a country like ours built its wealth, why that led to the discrimination faced by people in terms of enslavement, and asking that as a country we first apologise and then seek to do what we can to repair the damage. That can be done in a number of ways, including education—what we are doing right now is a form of reparatory justice—and returning artefacts, as was discussed, or even just human remains.

Some hon. Members may remember that earlier this year I had a ten-minute rule Bill when we found that numerous human remains are being held in boxes or sold on auction sites, and many of those have come from colonial times. It is a disgusting practice. To deny peoples of African descent dignity even in death points to the discrimination they still face. It is so important that this movement can no longer be ignored; it cannot be ignored by the Government or by the House. We need to think as a country about how we will go about the work of repair.

Black History Month cannot be only for talking about these issues and perhaps celebrating, as we have throughout the debate, although that is really important. It must also be about honesty and what we are still getting wrong. This year, our community lost Professor Jason Arday, the youngest black professor in Cambridge’s history, my constituent and my friend. How he died is a matter for the coroner—I will say nothing that gets in the way of that—but how he was treated is a matter for all of us. It is not right that we have not been given the opportunity to discuss that. Nearly 30,000 people stood in Trafalgar Square for Jason and vigils were held across the country. The public did not stay silent, yet when a few weeks ago at business questions I stood to ask the House why it had not discussed him, I was asking a question that I should never have had to ask in the first place.

The House has debated other issues in relation to press conduct—it has done so for Milly Dowler, Lucy Meadows, Caroline Flack and others—and Jason deserves no less. I put it to the Government that it is still not too late for them to come to the House with a statement. We cannot stand here every October and celebrate black excellence and then look away when black excellence is torn down in front of us. We cannot honour the names in the history books and ignore those being dragged through the newspapers today. Celebration without reflection is just performance, and we are no one’s minstrels.

Those who are good at maths will know that next year marks the 40th anniversary of Black History Month in the UK. Plans are already under way, with resources being prepared for schools and communities across the country. Again, I encourage the Government and the Mayor of London to be in touch with the founder of Black History Month in the UK, Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, and his team, who really want input into the conversation and the plans we have.

Black History Month

Debate between Dawn Butler and Bell Ribeiro-Addy

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler]

I thank my hon. Friend. I understand that the Prime Minister has said we have to look to the future and that he is dealing with 14 years of corruption and mismanagement by the Conservative Government, but we do have to consider reparations because it is the right thing to do. This question makes me wonder whether it would ever be conceivable that this decision would be made today. Would we pay traffickers for their loss of trade? Would we pay pimps for their loss of trade? It is a ridiculous assertion.

So I thought to myself, who made this decision and how was it made? Obviously, it was made in Parliament. Back then there were no women, no black people, no people of colour; it was just white men and they made that decision. And we only finished paying nine years ago, so it is still very current.

While the British Government have not disclosed a complete list of the recipient individuals and firms of bonds related to compensation for slaves, researchers at University College London have compiled a list of over 46,000 current individuals and groups who have received Government payouts related to the abolition of slavery. Many powerful British families, including current business and political elites in the United Kingdom, are among the recipients uncovered by the UCL team. So when we hear the arguments that to make our money—to make our millions—we just have to work hard and pull ourselves up by our boot straps, that is not quite the full story. That is why the narrative needs to be reset, and structures created in order to uphold a white supremacist view need to be revisited and restructured.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her fantastic speech. As she will know, a number of people are calling for reparations, including Members of this House; there is an all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations of which she is a member. Does she agree there should be a discussion about the different ways in which people want reparations to be paid? People have heard about large sums of money and have got scared, but they have not thought about all the different ways, such as through environmental or educational reparations, that we could go about repairing the sheer imbalance of equality that we as a country created by taking part in the enslavement and trafficking and colonialisation of other countries. There are many different ways in which we could support those we so seriously disadvantaged, and does my hon. Friend agree that everybody should come along to the APPG conference this Sunday, 27 October, if they would like to hear more?

[Dawn Butler]

I thank my hon. Friend for her excellent plug for the conference on Sunday, and I will be there. The thing about resetting the narrative is that we have to learn. We have to educate ourselves, and there is nothing wrong in that. There is also nothing wrong in changing our mind. There is nothing wrong in having one position and then learning something new and understanding—for instance that reparations is not just about money—and then changing our mind.

Slavery destroyed the African economy. It stripped Africa of its people and also stripped Africa of its riches. There is a narrative that Africa is poor because of corruption and we must help these poor African children. I would like to change that narrative and say that Africa is rich. Africa is rich in natural resources ranging from arable land, water, oil and natural gas to minerals, forests and wildlife. The continent holds a huge proportion of the world’s natural resources, both renewable and non-renewable. Africa is home to some 30% of the world’s mineral reserves, 8% of the world’s natural gas, 12% of the world’s natural oil reserves, 40% of the world’s gold and up to 90% of its chromium and platinum. It has the largest reserves of cobalt, diamonds, platinum and uranium and 10% of the planet’s internal renewable fresh water source. So I want everybody to consider the narrative that Africa is rich and it has had its wealth stolen.

Africa is also a net creditor to the rest of the world. As my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham and Brixton Hill (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) said, there are lots of big numbers being mentioned such as that $777 trillion needs to paid in reparations. Most recently Dr Michael Banner, dean of Trinity College Cambridge, claimed Britain owed £205 billion in reparations. Patrick Robinson, leading judge at the International Court of Justice, declared that the UK should pay $24 trillion for its involvement in slavery. There are a lot of figures and that is a lot of money, but at the end of the day some things will be easy to compensate. It is not just about money. We could give back artefacts and the bodies of freedom fighters and stolen jewels and precious metals wherever they may be. We could make good the land and seas ruined by oil spills, correct the education of history, compensate land and home owners, and cancel the debt. There are lots of things that can be done to make sure we have reparations.

I realise that it is complicated to calculate what is owed, but we must not forget that in order for slavery to continue people put a number on other people’s lives; people were sold for money. If it could be done then, it can be done now.

The first homo sapiens on earth—modern humans—are thought to have evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago, and it is fascinating reading about the different continents and about Africa and the middle stone age and how they developed different tools and painting and where they came from. It led me to write a poem about being of the first ones that seems to have upset quite a few racists, and I say to them that they should not scroll through my social media feed unless they want to get upset.

This is my poem.

So you wanted to see me broken

Head bowed and tears in my eyes

More fool you you didn’t realise my strength is powered by your lies.

You are the wrong one

The violent one

The weird one

Whereas I, I am the chosen one of the first ones

You see this skin I am in

This beautiful mahogany brown

This skin you don’t like I believe

So why try so hard to achieve

By burning yourself by the sun

For me there is no need

Because I am the chosen one

I am of the first ones

I know I am black and beautiful

An African freedom fighter

My skin is my protection

And you my friend don’t matter.

Because I am the chosen one

As I am of the first ones

So you wanted to see me broken

Head bowed and tears in my eyes

More fool you, you haven’t realised

My strength is despite your lies.

No one should shy away from the truth even if it hurts and is painful. Slavery has always been wrong, and that is why we have a modern slavery Bill which has started in the other place. We should remind ourselves that knowing the truth is not the same as hate. This is not hate speech; this is love speech. This is the way we right the wrongs of the past and look forward to the future.