October is Black History Month
A group of British hip-hop and grime artists are determined to wrench back Black History Month there and in the US from the cynics.
Mandela statue at Southbank Centre in London. Image credit Paul Simpson via Flickr.
What started in the United States in 1926 as “Negro History Week” to promote awareness of African-American history to the U.S. public in 1976 morphed into “Black History Month,” and some people will still celebrate it there – and in Canada – during February. The UK does so during October. Be that on a slightly smaller budget courtesy of London’s lord mayor Boris Johnson. As The Guardian reported last February, “[f]igures seen by the Guardian show that the London mayor cut funding for Black History Month, a series of events staged in October to celebrate black culture in the capital, from £132,000 to £10,000, though city hall insists the previous figure was £76,000. Africa Day’s £100,000 grant from the London Development Agency was axed completely.”
Nevertheless, I can’t remember coming across similar events on this side of the Channel.
Some criticize it for being turned into a commercial sham like critics do in the United States or for being silent on black history’s symbiotic relationship with white history. Still, the group of English hip-hop and grime artists in the video at the link at the end seems determined to wrench it back from the cynics, paying tribute along the way to Maurice Bishop (remember him), Rosa Parks, Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Emmett Till, Shaka Zulu, Malcolm X, Benjamin Banneker, Nat Turner, Mamadou Diallo, Marcus Garvey, Harriet Tubman, Khalid Abdul Muhammad and others. Watch till the end.
It may all sound like Afrika Bambataa, early Public Enemy, and Native Tongues, but they’re keeping it topical: “Our truths they hid it well. If we knew ourselves, would so many sit in a cell? When Europe influences African affairs that Africa has in Europe, we can talk about a world that’s fair.”
