Each One Teach One
Black History
A teaser trailer for Colin Kaepernick and Ava DuVernay’s upcoming Netflix limited series Colin in Black & White has been released. The six-episode scripted drama chronicles Kaepernick’s coming-of-age tackling the obstacles of race, class, and culture as the Black adopted child of a white family in Central California. Kaepernick narrates the tale as high school …
The brutal abduction and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on 28 August 1955, brought nationwide attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in Mississippi. It also spurred the emerging civil rights movement in America. Emmett Till – Early life Emmett Louis Till was born on 25 July 1941 the only son of Mami Carthan …
It is often thought that World War I (WW1) was a European War, fought exclusively by Europeans but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Not often mentioned is the fact that there were Caribbean, Asian and African soldiers who served in the war. Walter Tull is the most celebrated Black British soldier of the …
Madam C J Walker was an entrepreneur best known for inventing Black haircare products. She was a political social activist, philanthropist and the first female self-made millionaire. Early years Born Sarah Breedlove on 23 December 1867, Madam C J Walker was the first child in her family to be born into freedom after the signing …
Onesimus was an enslaved West African man whose African teachings helped to reduce the impact of the smallpox outbreak in Boston, Massachusetts. Little is known about Onesimus before he was enslaved other than he was Coromantee (also known as Akan people from modern Ghana). Like many enslaved people his original name, age and date of …
You’ve heard of Rosa Parks but what do you know of Claudette Colvin? Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, 15-year-old Claudette did the exact same thing. Early life Claudette Austin was born in Birmingham, Jefferson County, to Mary Jane Gadson and C P Austin …
What is Juneteenth? Juneteenth is a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. It is observed annually on 19 June. It is also called Emancipation Day, or Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day. The term Juneteenth is a combination of the words June and nineteenth. History of Juneteenth During the American Civil …
The war on ‘woke’ and the overuse of the word wokeism has become a dog whistle to people who don’t like to be challenged for their bigoted, xenophobic or racist views. Just like the term politically correct, woke has been co-opted by the far-right to bash socially conscious people over the head. The term woke …
Windrush Day is observed in the UK on 22 June to mark the arrival of the Empire Windrush and to honour the contribution of the Windrush Generation and their descendants. Windrush Day was introduced in June 2018 on the 70th anniversary of the Windrush migration following a successful campaign led by Patrick Vernon. The arrival …
When the English took over the colonisation of Jamaica from the Spanish, they imported thousands of Africans as slaves to work on plantations of wealthy Englishmen. Like other colonised islands, the slaves rebelled regularly. The most well-known Jamaican slave rebellions are the 1831 Christmas rebellion, led by Samuel Sharpe and the Maroon Wars led …
Jamaican Maroons were escaped African slaves who had run away from Spanish owned plantations when the British took the Caribbean Island of Jamaica from Spain in 1655. They fled to the mountainous areas of Jamaica, where it was difficult for their owners to follow and catch them. There they formed independent communities as free men …
The Notting Hill Race riots were the result of a campaign of attacks on the Caribbean residents in a bid to drive them out of their homes and ultimately out of Britain. Much like the 1919 race riots, the growing Black presence in Britain was a major factor in these events. Although dubbed the Notting Hill race …
What is Black Lives Matter? The Black Lives Matter movement started as a hashtag on social networks and officially began in the United States in 2013 after George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin in Florida. The movement grew to protest not just the justice system in America but police brutality against …
What is the Windrush scandal? The Windrush scandal mainly affected UK citizens originally from the Caribbean. It came to light in 2018 after it emerged that hundreds of Commonwealth citizens, many of whom were from the Windrush Generation, had been wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights. Who are the Windrush generation? The Windrush Generation …
Viola Fletcher, the oldest survivor of the racist attack on Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street”, testified at a House Judiciary Committee hearing to mark the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Viola Fletcher was 7 when a white mob destroyed the all-Black neighbourhood in Tulsa and killed 300 Black people. For nearly a century the …
