We're currently learning about Walter Tull in Year 8 and Robert F Williams in Year 9. ...
Thanks for the references - interesting to read about.
...Over 65% of my school are of Black African or Caribbean descent (although most are now third generation British) so it [BHM] is of more relevance to them than the Battle of Hastings or the English Civil War. ...
Hmmm... that is debatable! Hastings = introduction of an oppressive coloniser to the UK, leading eventually to the birth of democracy and the Magna Carta. English Civil War = fight between elected/democratic Parliament and the traditionalist Royalist powers, ending up in a victory for the former leading to a dictatorship.
PS: full respect to all teachers of course. Not a job I could do well!
Well said Paul, your response highlights to me that when eg the oppressive colonising of the UK's is just between white participants the oppressor and repressed it is somehow 'different' and not the same as that when its between white and black peoples.
Maybe the version of 1066 that is taught should be revisited and not from the victors prospect (Normans) but from the vanquished, those subdued and the oppressed prospective. The fact that England and Ireland became part of the Norman Empire that stretched to the Holy Lands, That the Normans also denied us our culture, our language, our laws. That oppression when put into the context lead to the first form of civil rights and a constitution Magna Carta.
Almost reflecting what happened in much of the colonisation of Africa. What could be more poignant?
