Our hidden history month

Why should we celebrate Black History Month? Chukwudum Ikeazor from the Metropolitan Police Diversity Directorate explains the “Whys” and the “Ifs” behind Black History Month.

Despite its uneasy early years, Black History Month (BHM) today has endorsement at the highest levels of government in the United Kingdom and the United States where it was founded in 1926. American Presidents since 1976 issue Black History Month proclamations every February. In Britain, every October, the Prime Minister, Mayors, Police Chiefs all have something to say about Black History Month and the contribution of Black people to Britain. The history of Black people teaches me that we can achieve anything.

In spite of this, there are still questions being posed about BHM, the most searching being “Why?” BHM is a child of necessity and history, surrounded by many “Ifs” that explain its rationale.

If Black History had not been sidelined or subjected to the level of denial, distortion and deconstruction it has been through, there would no need for special measures to redress any imbalance.

If millions of Africans had not been forcibly shipped into slavery to the Americas, had their ancestral memory wiped out, their racial and continental history hidden from them, there would have been no need for BHM.

Black History Month is relevant in the same way that the International Women’s Day, the Holocaust Memorial Day, the Remembrance Day or Inter-Faith Week. They only arose because things had gone very badly wrong in the past.

If Black/African achievers and achievements, the Nubian pharaohs, the West African empires, the 18/19th century abolitionists, the writers, the Ancient Rome African soldiers, and administrators (including one emperor), African popes, First and Second World War soldiers and officers, and so many others had not been sidelined or airbrushed out of conventional history then there would have been no need for special measures to restore them to their rightful places.

If black singers, entertainers, boxers, footballers and other sports people were not repeatedly and exclusively paraded and repeatedly proclaimed as “role models” as though their endeavours were the only areas where black people have or could excel; then perhaps there would have been little point to BHM.

As the European child may, consciously or subconsciously, take pride in the ancient empires and civilisations that sprung from their continental home, from Rome and Greece, though he may not be Greek or Italian, that African child, African-American child, African-Caribbean child deserves too to know the truth that his ancestral continental homeland is also home to great civilisations, great edifices, great men and women who have contributed to history.

Other communities with particular histories and experiences of destructive discrimination have also seen it fit set up their own History Months. History Months are children of circumstances. Were those circumstances not to have occurred, there would have been no Jewish Heritage Month (USA), no Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month (UK), no Black History Month (UK, USA and Canada) and Carter Woodson might have made his name in other ways.

I look forward to, someday, the celebration of what may be called “Our History Month”, where every child of every race, religion or region will have a sense of belonging and part-ownership of our history. n

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