Black History Month

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I echo other Members’ congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) on securing this important debate, which I am sure will be influential in the life of our country.

In the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, more than 500 people in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields contacted me wanting to know what action would be taken. What had happened had struck a chord with their own lives and experience, and it represented the kind of society that we do not want to be. Many of them talked about our education system being at the root of the problems in our society, and a key part of their demand was the call for every schoolchild to be taught honestly and truthfully about Britain’s colonial history. I pay tribute to all those young people who wrote to me and to all the teachers who want to do more in their schools. It is essential that Britain wrestles with, and reckons with, our colonial past, as it is part of our history. As has been said many times, we also need to do all that we can to ensure that we value and celebrate the achievements of black Britons and black people across the world. That is what is so important about Black History Month. It is not just about history, but about our current world and about life at the moment. It is a time to celebrate activism, as it is that activism that has brought us to where we are today, and to understand how far we still have to go.

This subject cannot be a voluntary add-on. In previous debates, Ministers have listed the opportunities to bring black history into the curriculum—at both primary and secondary level. None the less, it is not good enough that it is optional for some teachers in some schools. I welcome the call by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead for a review of the national curriculum. I add to that the demand of the Black Curriculum campaign that there is a compulsory module for black history in key stage 3.

Developing curriculums takes careful planning and research. If the Government really are ready to take up the call and believe that we can teach the colonial legacy accurately and that every child can learn about black people’s contributions, they need to back it up with resourcing for schools. I pay tribute to UNICEF for its Rights Respecting campaign. Rights Respecting schools—there are three levels of bronze, silver and gold—have the opportunity to look at black history across the curriculum within the context of rights. Many schools in my constituency have used this scheme to great benefit.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because what she is showing is that innovations at a local level in teaching history, such as history festivals, can bring about huge differences. We have our own Gloucester History Festival. In fact, today is the last day that anyone in this House and outside can listen to Janina Ramirez’s conversation with David Olusoga on the gloucesterhistoryfestival.co.uk site free of charge. It is a wonderful discussion with one of our leading black history historians. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is the sort of thing that can make a huge difference to young people’s perceptions?

[Fleur Anderson]

I do agree and what an excellent advertisement for an event. I would add to that the work of Putney High School and of Chestnut Grove Academy. They have taken up the challenge to look at black history and to continue with innovation.

I join the call for the module to be compulsory and taught to every student. That would be a strong first step, and mean that all children will learn about black history—not just those who can go along to a festival or whose teachers have the time and resources to teach it. A compulsory module will require, as I have said, training for teachers and the development of resources. I join the call for the Department for Education to put in place a plan for the proper teaching of black history across our curriculum.

As a society, we must commit to an education system that fights racism, that ensures that every child can see their place in it and realise their full potential, that recognises the true and painful legacy of slavery and colonialism and puts it in the correct context, and that values the achievements of black people. Most of all, it will take us forward to a society that has no racism, that does not need to hold a debate such as this, that is truly equal and that ensures that we can all achieve our potential in society. Black history is British history and should be taught all year round.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate on such important matters, as so many have said before me. I want to start with a really positive message that the UK has traditionally been one of the most open, tolerant, welcoming and diverse countries in the western world, with some of the lowest levels of hate crime in Europe. That is consistently found in a number of recent large-scale studies such as the Eurobarometer poll, the World Value Survey and the European Value Study. We can be clear that there is much more to be done, yes. We can agree that even one example of racial hatred and prejudice is wrong, yes. But we must none the less acknowledge that the vast majority of people in this country are open, tolerant and accepting on diversity issues; I know my constituents certainly are. Where there are threats to tolerance and peaceful co-existence, they come from both sides of society, the left and the right. It is clear that active xenophobia, racism and violence are totally unacceptable in this country, and we should rightly challenge them by responding swiftly with the full force of the law.

Black History Month is a great opportunity for celebration, but on education and the curriculum we should be clear and tackle some other areas, such as the cancel culture, which attempts to close down debate, discussion and learning in our universities and other educational institutions, and seeks to influence society by instilling sometimes political ideologies into what should be a neutral and fact-based educational curriculum. We must not politicise education. Where that happens, it is a feature of some of the most oppressive regimes in the world.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is making a good case about not allowing cancel culture to infuse our society. Does he agree that the renaming of the David Hume tower in the University of Edinburgh is a good example of what should not happen? We are talking about a great 18th century philosopher and great figure in the Scottish enlightenment, whose name was taken away from the tower because of one footnote in one essay 300 years ago. Does he agree that that is not helpful to the teaching of history or of black history?

[Duncan Baker]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and we know that there are many instances of this happening: what happened at the Proms; episodes of “Fawlty Towers” being taken off air; and politicians not being allowed to speak in university debates because their views perhaps differed from that of the university. I take my hon. Friend’s point entirely that there are many areas here, which is why I bring this issue to the Floor of the House.

As I was saying, some regimes fear free thinking and articulate citizens who may use their learning and fluency of thought to think for themselves in a free, democratic country, but we need have no such fears. We must never permit our educational system to become a vehicle for politics or politicising. Our schools and universities have always been and need to remain places of learning. They are places whose primary duty is to instil a love of learning, thinking and free expression, and to equip young people with the skills to think for themselves. That is why calls to decolonise our curriculum give me a little concern.

Our nation’s history is one of great breadth and depth, but we all know it is nuanced: there are examples of great triumphs and advances that have benefited civilisation in all kinds of ways; equally, there are examples of great failures and aspects of our past that through modern eyes and by today’s standards are shameless. All we need to do is teach—teach that history, warts and all, encourage as wide a range of perspectives as possible and facilitate the conversations that will empower young people to form their own conclusions about the issues that shape the world around them and to be meaningful contributors to the wider conversation. This is what we do every day. It is the cornerstone of our democracy. Our educational institutions should be reflections of the openness with which we debate, disagree, compromise and even find agreement here in Parliament. Robert Maynard Hutchins said:

“The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.”

However, it was Francis Bacon who put it best:

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Black History Month originated in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month, and it was created to remember important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. In the mid-1980s, Ansel Wong led an initiative here, which eventually resulted in Black History Month in the United Kingdom.

It is important not to miss the real point of this debate. I would like to argue what Black History Month should be and maybe what it should not be. This is not about appeasement to ethnic minorities, because it is an important part of British history and an important part of history for all of us in this country. It sits alongside other histories—social histories, military histories, post-war histories, and the histories of peoples as well, such as the modern experience of Sikhs, British Jewry and Muslims in this country. As for the Isle of Wight, our African and black history goes back to the Roman empire. We had people from north Africa and people from Italy on the island because we were an early point of habitation by the Roman empire when it was in this country.

I do feel that Black History Month is getting caught up in other issues and unnecessarily politicised, because it is a fascinating subject in its own right. It is not about silly slogans about decolonisation. It is not about the tedious debate about woke activism or the cancel culture eloquently described by my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker). Nor is it solely about the drumbeat of slavery, although that is an important moral, economic and political issue.

On that point, until the UK abolished it, and however depressing it may be, slavery was a consistent norm in human experience. Our state, at the height of its power two centuries ago, used that power for an absolute moral good—manumission and the destruction of the international slave trade off west Africa. The West Africa Squadron, which used a considerable amount of the Royal Navy’s resources at the time, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan) eloquently pointed out, was a unique vehicle in history. As part of the most powerful military institution of that era, the Royal Navy was used for an absolute moral good: the destruction of slavery.

Yes, our history is complex. At the time of destroying slavery, we were also accumulating an empire, so it is easy to make accusations of hypocrisy, but rather than standing here like some agitprop student politician, I would rather understand the past and the complex worlds that people living before us inhabited, because it can help guide our way, frankly, to a better future.

[Richard Graham]

On that point, my hon. Friend may be interested that we have only one major statue of a slaver in Gloucester. It happens to be the Emperor Nerva of the Roman empire, who did indeed take slaves from the UK back to Italy. We have not done anything to daub him at all.

[Bob Seely]

I wonder whether some constituents from a couple of millennia ago were part of that trade—I hope not.

As a Trinidadian friend tells me, we do not help one group of people by pulling down others. Black history is fundamentally about so much more, whether it is the story of peoples such as the Windrush generation—I pay tribute to the extraordinary courage that people needed to get on that boat to come here from the Caribbean after world war two; it was an extraordinary thing—or individuals such as Mary Seacole, who was turned down by the War Office when she wanted to go and help British soldiers in Crimea. She got funding herself and went. Leading aircraftwoman Lilian Bader was the first black woman to join the armed forces in world war two. She ended up as a corporal. Joan Armatrading was the first ever UK artist to be nominated for a Grammy in the blues category. The first black peer was Lord Constantine. Trevor McDonald is incredibly well known. On the Isle of Wight, our modern cultural history will, I am sure, heavily feature Derek Sandy’s classic reggae “Welcome to the Isle of Wight”.

There is much to debate about genuine Black History Month, as opposed to politicised statements around race. On one side of the Chamber, I think we have had a rather negative view of our history, of humanity and of a world divided into oppressors and victims. On the Conservative Benches, I think we have had a rather more optimistic view of human nature. While humanity is not perfect, there is much to celebrate. I am very proud of this country, and I am proud of our record. Life is not perfect and nor are we, but the way we make that better is to understand the world, and I hope that is what Black History Month will help us do.