Black History Month

Polly Billington Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) on her speech. She shared an important story about Peter McLagan, and I will enjoy supporting her campaign. I want to refer back to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee); he will enjoy reading his admission in Hansard that I look 15 years younger.

Black History Month has its roots in this country, in a powerful vision of education and empowerment. In 1987, Akyaaba Addai-Sebo and Ansel Wong, staff at the Greater London Council—a Ghanaian and a Trinidadian respectively—recognised a pressing need: black British children were facing an identity crisis, were reluctant to identify with their African heritage, and shrank back when called African. This realisation sparked a movement to create time and space to challenge racism and, importantly, to recognise, educate, and reflect on the invaluable contributions of black Britons to our nation’s history and culture. The history of Britain is incomplete without acknowledging the profound contributions of ethnic minority communities.

[Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me on the importance of that changing narrative, and the importance of the organisations in our communities that change it? In mine we have People Dem Collective, Everyday Racism and Margate Black Pride, which are putting the stories of black people in our constituencies on the map. They tell me that in the modern curriculum review, we need to make sure that black history is not just about black people; it is everyone’s history, and it should be part of the curriculum.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I remind the hon. Lady that interventions need to be short. She will have an opportunity to make a speech in due course.