Celebrating black excellence

Celebrating black excellence

Christ’s Hospital’s African Caribbean Society, one of CHEDI’s (Christ’s Hospital’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) many branch groups, provides all pupils and staff with an opportunity to openly and honestly discuss issues regarding race both within school, and the wider world. As a student-led organisation, we aim to make the experiences of African-Caribbean pupils and staff much better through discussion, education and fun! From career-oriented events and curriculum reforms, to ACS-led Saturday night entertainment and collaborations with the catering team, the ACS aims to have a positive impact on attitudes towards racial discrimination and discussions about race by encouraging honesty, inclusion, respect and equity.

Black British History Matters

In recent years, there has been an increasing acceptance of the view that Black History is not represented well enough in school curricula and even when it is, it is reduced to motivating but repetitive and brief stories about the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and various abolitionist and civil rights movements. Whilst this is important, there is much more to black history that goes untaught, unread, and is equally deserving of being studied in school. Not only is it assumed that black people have some sort of innate knowledge of black history, we are often left with the additional challenge of educating others about black history.

Another thing that was noticed was that the black history discussed in school was often about American figures such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, leaving British students with a lack of knowledge of important figures in British black history, and enabling the perception that racism is predominantly an ‘American issue’: this is certainly not the case.

With this in mind, the ACS have worked with the History Department as well as the teachers in charge of the Learning for Life programme, to implement teaching about important black British figures in history, as well as other black people who have achieved great and inspiring things. The aim of this is to provide students with a more accurate depiction of history and the role black people have played in making it, despite the obstacles laid before them. Black history shouldn’t just be about the more ‘palatable’ heroes, but the villains and others behind the scenes too.

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