What black history were you taught at school?

Question I've been meaning to ask all month but haven't come up with a decent way of framing it, so let's just wade in and see where we get...

What black history, if any, were you taught at school?

I feel like as a teen I knew about figures in the civil rights movement like King, Malcolm, Parks... but I'm pretty sure I didn't learn that at school. Probably also worth mentioning that well into my adulthood I was still labouring under the misapprehension that what Parks did was a random, impulsive act, rather than a planned act of civil disobedience.

There are obviously questions about other under-represented sections of society, such as women, LGBTQ+, etc, but I figure those deserve their own threads and this was prompted by the fact October is (or rather, "has been", at this point) Black History Month.

 

None

 

I grew up in Brixton. It was just history.

 

None. Not a thing.

 

Nothing at all.

 

None.

 

None, in five years of history. Did a load of old shit about the Norman conquest, some other kings and queens bollocks, the Russian Revolution, the general strike and the treaty of Versailles

 

I think we got a half hour lesson once about the slave trade, I remember the cross section drawing of the boat and arrows across the map saying sugar / cotton .

 

I had one history teacher who taught us about corn laws and enclosure, whilst occasionally decrying the modern world by saying that Enoch Powell was misunderstood and actually talked a lot of sense.
On balance, we had another history teacher who was obsessed with teaching us about the Wobblies and the importance of trade-unionism, which was totally off-syllabus.

 

None.

 

None - the scramble for Africa was taught as an event in Euro political history, and the Anglo-French rivalry that led to Fashoda was, again, treated for its importance in European terms.

 

None.

I did, however, do a brilliant (compared to anyone else’s I’ve heard about) history O level syllabus. I think it was something like Southern Joint...something exam board and we studied ‘the Irish question’, and Chinese communism. And there was even an option to study the Arab/Israeli conflict. That and the history of medicine, which seems bloody compulsory to this day, across the board(s).

But..no.

 

"Causes of the reformation" was illustrated in the textbook with a picture of a happy monk with a flagon of beer in one hand and his arm around a girl, and the caption "corruption in the church".

 

In what way?

I don't remember any up to GCSE level. One of my a level topics was American history which I think may have covered the civil war and slavery, though likely not from a black pov.

 

Sounds like you did the same syllabus as one of my friends on Facebook!

 

we did the slave trade iirc, I know I learned about some Abolitionist big names at some point in school. William Knibb. That stuck because there are buildings named for him in n'pton. Other than that it was ww1 and two, the roaring 20s in america (so as to avoid looking at the social fabric of 20s UK says I ). Romans. No way can I remember key stage 3 anymore

 

By my parents,not school.

BTW for black history month the hospital I work at brought some African drumming in
Fucking really?
I'm just thinking about the fact that Bristol has the most Jamaicans outside Jamaica and a lot of them worked in the NHS. That would have been more interesting for a start.
African drumming seems like a 1980's approach to celebrating diversity... But it's Bristol so Yeh 20 years behind!

 

In school nothing. We studied our towns history, which was a Saxon town invaded by Vikings by way of the river and we studied the Industrial revolution and mining. Nothing about slavery or anything else, even though I now know how linked the industrial revolution and slavery is. What little education we had on black history was learned outside of school by way of telly programmes, for instance Roots Roots (TV Mini-Series 1977) - IMDb

 

We did the scramble for Africa but nothing really apart from that until History A Level. I did a module on civil rights in US.

There's so much more to black history than subjugation and struggles for freedom, it's a shame that more black history isn't taught and that what is taught is actually quite narrow.

 

This is what the AQA exam board History GCSE looks like:
Specification at a glance

Does any of this qualify as specifically black history or is it just the bits of US or UK history that happen to intersect with it?

Does this GCSE history syllabus contain sufficient black history and is it structured in a way that guarantees that at least some of the relevant content will be covered?

 

We (me and siblings) got a very good informal education on black history by our next door neighbour and friend, Annette:
Urban life - Darcus Howe pays tribute to an unsung heroine
Thanks Annette, we were so lucky to know you.

 

Did a bit on the slave trade and the civil rights movement. Hardly a big focus.

 

we studied a bit about the Amistad, I remember watching the film in class. I think that was specifically for Black History Month. we also did do a bit about Rosa Parks and Jim Crow, but I can;t remember much of the context - from memory at least it was treated in a pretty isolated way that generally left it seeming disconnected from wider issues or relation to today.

 

none.

kid1 did malcolm x and civil rights for her history gcse last year.

 

Bit on slave trade, colonialism, civil rights movement.

Also did a bit on various african history and culture, and influences around the world.

And touched on a bit about egypt and roman empire.

 

I remember learning about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther king in primary school. Apparently people of colour didn’t exist in secondary school except for a short thing on slavery where it was stressed how if it hadn’t been for the nice upper class it would never have been abolished.

 

Yes, I had a similar syllabus at times more current affairs than history. We were studying the history of Zimbabwe at the time of the Lancaster house negotiations.

 

The triangular trade, Toussaint L'Ouverture/The Haitian Rebellion, and the usual colonialist bollocks about "Empire".

 

None at all as I remember it.

The scramble for Africa involved chaps in fine suits with moustaches civilising the world, but other than that, nothing I think. Nothing very much even at A level - but this was 30 years ago now.