Although brutally assassinated fifty-five years ago this month, the Eminent Prophet Omowale Malcolm X left us a legacy that many of us are still grappling with today. One of the reasons for this is the ongoing attempts to misrepresent his legacy, for example the likes of Prof Manning Marable in his 2011 book, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, where he “dismisses and diminishes the expressed goals of the OAAU… [His] final mass organizational political act.” (1)
At the time of his death, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), guided by its “Brain Trust” that included the likes of Babas John Henrik Clarke and Yosef Ben-Jochannan (2), was preparing to launch its extensive programme:
“So the purpose of the Organization of Afro American Unity is to unite everyone in the Western Hemisphere of African descent into one united force. And then, once we are united among ourselves in the Western Hemisphere, we will unite with our brothers on the motherland, on the continent of Africa.” (3)
Keen students of Omowale Malcolm X will overstand that focus on our young people was fundamental to the vision of the OAAU. This is something that Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka will be outlining at the annual Omowale Malcolm X Observance on February 23rd in his keynote address: Ten Point Plan for Future Leaders: Transforming the Next Generation. The event takes place at the Chestnuts Community Centre, 280 St Ann’s Road, Tottenham, London N15 5BN (https://www.alkebulan.org/omx-observance-6260/).
Alongside Self-Defence, Politics & Economics and Social, Education was one of the key pillars of the OAAU’s programme:
“Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today.
Our children are being criminally shortchanged in the public-school system of America. The Afro-American schools are the poorest run schools in the city of New York. Principals and teachers fail to understand the nature of the problems with which they work and as a result they cannot do the job of teaching our children. They don’t understand us, nor do they understand our problems; they don’t. The textbooks tell our children nothing about the great contributions of Afro-Americans to the growth and development of this country.
And they don’t. When we send our children to school in this country they learn nothing about us other than that we used to be cotton pickers. Every little child going to school thinks his grandfather was a cotton picker. Why, your grandfather was Nat Turner; your grandfather was Toussaint L’Ouverture; your grandfather was Hannibal. Your grandfather was some of the greatest black people who walked on this earth. It was your grandfather’s hands who forged civilization and it was your grandmother’s hands who rocked the cradle of civilization. But the textbooks tell our children nothing about the great contributions of Afro Americans to the growth and development of this country.” (4)
The OAAU realised that, in the final analysis, the ultimate solution was to set up our own schools:
“We must establish all over the country schools of our own to train our own children to become scientists, to become mathematicians. We must realize the need for adult education and for job retraining programs that will emphasize a changing society in which automation plays the key role. We intend to use the tools of education to help raise our people to an unprecedented level of excellence and self respect through their own efforts.” (5)
But they realised in the meantime parents and the community have to engage with the public-school system as a site of engagement for the majority of our children. (6)
Five and a half decades later and four thousand miles away, it’s an analysis that was tellingly prescient. As Bro. Femi Akomolafe, Research Associate at the National Institute for African Studie sand author of the book Black Damage; why Africa and its diasporas are plagued with poverty, conflicts and crime, and the ways forward, asserts in the UK context:
“When the teaching of black history begins with slavery, it ignores the humanity of black people, just as their humanity was denied in the past. The history of Africa taught in British classrooms today centres on slavery, and the humanitarian aid that western countries send to Africa – the typical ‘single story’ of Africa… The British black history curriculum and black history textbooks have failed black students. Most history teachers today, from primary to tertiary institutions, are themselves trained from textbooks which give skewed account of black history. In addition, black history scholarship is pioneered by the European; most of the academic textbooks on black history are presented from a Eurocentric lens – a case of history been written by the conqueror.” (7)
This is in spite of the the recommendations of a more diverse curriculum made in Sir William Macpherson’s report of the The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry over twenty years ago. In fact, such attempts to address these issues have been effectively sidelined as successive government promoted its emphasis on “Fundamental British Values… which align exclusively to a celebration of the British Empire and its oppressive and colonial past.” (8)
Academics Malachi McIntosh and Hannah Elias also emphasise this point, linking it to ongoing discussions in the wider community within the context of Brexit:
“What’s missing from our curriculum is also missing from our public debate. The voices and experiences of Black British and British Asian people are often excluded in schools or inserted as add-ons or supplements to ‘real’ history.” (9)
Perhaps one argument could be that’s it’s ok to emphasise British history if it is truthful and doesn’t edit out the harsher elements. However, to do this would require a seismic departure from the prevalent British psyche.
Yet Omowale Malcolm X proclaimed:
“Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research.” (10)
What some might have done faced with this situation is to knock up some placards, gather some friends and march down to the Department for Education offices at Great Smith Street and mount a protest. Others may have launched an online petition demanding that Gavin Williamson (Secretary of State for Education) “do something.” To be sure, both of these approaches have their place, but there are others. Someone who took a different route is twenty-three-year-old Sis. Lavinya Stennett who pulled together her core group and founded The Black Curriculum in February 2019. The Black Curriculum is “an education campaign… to get black British history embedded in the national curriculum and taught in schools in England year-round, as an alternative to the limitation of Black History Month.” (11)
Sis. Lavinya thought of the idea while studying for a degree in development and African studies at The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London. She later built up a team of 30, and has started visiting schools and holding weekend workshops. Since September 2019, they’ve reached over five-hundred young people. (12) The objective of The Black Curriculum is to: “1. To provide a sense of belonging and identity to young people across the UK; 2. To teach an accessible educational Black British history curriculum that raises attainment for young people; 3. To improve social cohesion between young people in the UK.” The means by which The Black Curriculum plans to achieve this is: (13)
“To teach Black history all year round in the school year, to 11 to 16-year-olds. We aim to deliver our own content into schools which aligns with the national curriculum at Key stage 3 and Key Stage 4 levels, using a range of art modes such as drama and poetry. We believe in the importance of teaching and learning Black history – as history, through the arts.” (14)
As did Omowale Malcolm X, Sis. Lavinya is clear about the deleterious impact of an educational process replete with implicit racial bias that assaults our young people’s sense of identity and belonging. The consequence of this, in too many instances, results in underachievement and disaffection leading to over-representation in the criminal justice system:
“Our education system in the UK has failed many young people. Currently, students across the UK are not being taught Black British History consistently as part of the national curriculum in a committed manner, despite numerous findings demonstrating its importance. The latest Home Office figures show that in 2017/18, there were 94,098 hate crime offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, 76% of which were racially aggravated. The reality of racism operates in many ways, particularly through the lack of education and understanding of Black British history. The Macpherson Report produced 20 years ago, showed that cultural diversity within the curriculum is one of the ways to prevent racism. Why are we still here today?” (15)
The Black Curriculum deliver workshops throughout the school term grounded in the arts for young people to engage with history imaginatively, allowing them to build critical thinking skills and understanding of themselves in relation to the world around them. They also deliver one off workshops and assemblies in partnership with schools. The curriculum “has been expertly created and assessed by our team of teachers, researchers and content creators. Our curriculum is also in alignment with the above subject aims found in the National Curriculum” and includes the following aspects:
“• Art History: A three-part module to encourage students to develop a deeper understanding of varied forms of music and music culture that exist within the Black community, connecting it to wider global, political and historical themes.
• Migration: A three-part module that uses and explores the social history of Black people in Britain, journeying through different era’s to understand the complex and varied experiences, allowing students to build critical skills in connecting history and present day phenomena
• Politics and the Legal System: A three-part module that offers contemporary knowledge and critical understanding into the different political and legal systems, ideologies and processes that involved, influenced and were invented by Black British populations.
• Land and The Environment: A three-part module which explores significant themes and draws on changing social and environmental patterns. It offers students the opportunity to extend their spatial awareness and build understanding on the link between space and human development.” (16)
Sis. Lavinya states that the project offers one side of the solution to a wider systemic problem but there is evidence that integrating Black British History into the National Curriculum. Work undertaken by Henry Compton School in Fulham a decade and a half ago lead to a significant increase in the number of students taking GCSE History and a dramatic rise in results leading them to conclude that: “mainstreaming black history allows schools to challenge stereotypes, ignorance and racism.” (17)
In terms of work that still needs doing, The Black Curriculum’s Black British History In The Natiomal Curriculum Report 2020 makes the following recommendations:
“1) Developing a multi-cultural diverse National Curriculum and curriculum’s: Moving away from a very prescriptive curriculum requires teachers to reimagine the History curriculum within the UK and consider how to develop a discourse that interweaves the contribution of Black History to the canon as a form or body of legitimate knowledge.
2) Britain is multi-cultural and our past and present History National Curriculum must reflect this: Understanding that within an ever-changing multi-diverse society, conventions of Britishness will always require reconceptualizing to incorporate all of our histories and stories.
3) Diversifying History teaching workforces: The dearth of Black History teachers within the teaching profession is problematic and when aligned to discriminatory practices that exclude Black and ethnic minority teachers this remains a significant factor in the narrative of British history that get purported within our classrooms.
4) Teaching Black history not only benefits Black students, but it is also beneficial to British society as a whole: The cognition which ensues allows us as a nation to collectively pause and reflect on race relations. Widening the scope of Black history study can also help society to unravel many of the racial stereotypes that linger into the present.” (18)
This “systemic problem” is manifested in the current political climate which, as we have seen with the meteoric elevation of micro-celebrities like Laurence Fox demonstrates that the government, its insittutions and the general population at large, is resistant to change, facts and truth – pretty much in equal measure. (19) One example that relates to education is the Prevent Duty, a statutory requirement on schools, NHS trusts, prisons and local authorities to report concerns about people who may be at risk of turning to extremism or terrorism, that many believe specifically targets the Muslim community. (20) However, in recent years the number of Islamist referrals has been tumbling and are now level pegging with those for the far-right that have been escalating in the same period and are now at a record high. (21) When added to the fact that head of terror police says that” far right poses fastest growing terror threat to UK,” presents the scenario that the education system will produce successive generations far-right activists. (22)
The undoubted skill and vision of Sis. Lavinya Stennett and the team at The Black Curriculum notwithstanding, their success will be more likely if we can galvanise the community to support their initiative. While our children number hundreds of thousands in the UK school system we have to have an agenda to stem the inimical effects of that system upon them. This is something that was clear to Omowale Malcolm X but he also fixed his sights on the establishment of our own educational institutions. At this current stage, the best we have are the supplementary schools that have been at the foundation of community activism for over fifty-years and perhaps they can benefit from the expertise of The Black Curriculum.
(1) Jared Ball (2012) An introduction to a lie in Jared Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs (Eds) A Lie Of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X. Black Classic Press. p. 10. https://imixwhatilike.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/alieintropdf.pdf
(2) A Peter Bailey (2013) Witnessing Brother Malcolm X:The Master Teacher – A Memoir. Llumina Press. p. 20-2
(3) Omowale Malcolm X (28/06/64) Malcolm X’s Speech At The Founding Rally Of The Organization Of Afro-American Unity. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/speeches-african-american-history/1964-malcolm-x-s-speech-founding-rally-organization-afro-american-unity/
(4) Ibid
(5) Ibid
(6) Ibid
(7) Femi Akomolafe (14/01/17) Questionable Black History in the British Curriculum. https://africanstudies.org.uk/2017/01/14/questionable-black-history-in-the-british-curriculum/
(8) Dr Jason Arday Edited by: Lavinya Stennett, Lisa Kennedy and Bethany Thompson (2020) The Black Curriculum: Black British History In The Natiomal Curriculum Report 2020. The Black Curriculum. p. 1-6. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c4325439d5abb9b27980cd4/t/5e1530a2ecbb473fb909584c/1578447045883/The+Black+Curriculum+Report+2020.pdf
(9) Malachi McIntosh and Hannah Elias (23/01/19) Teaching BAME History as British History: What does it have to do with Brexit? https://blog.history.ac.uk/2019/01/teaching-bame-history-as-british-history-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-brexit/
(10) Omowale Malcolm X (10/11/63) Message to Grassroots. http://brothermalcolm.net/mxwords/whathesaid8.html
(11) Sally Weale (08/01/20) Black British history ‘missing from school curricula in England’. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/08/black-british-history-should-be-in-mainstream-says-campaigner
(12) Ibid
(13) The Black Curriculum (2020) Our aims. https://www.theblackcurriculum.com/
(14) The Black Curriculum (2020) Our Mission. https://www.theblackcurriculum.com/our-work
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(15) The Black Curriculum (2020) Our Mission. https://www.theblackcurriculum.com/our-work.
(16) The Black Curriculum (2020) Our Mission. https://www.theblackcurriculum.com/schools
(17) Dan Lyndon (2006) Integrating Black British History into the National Curriculum. http://www.blackhistory4schools.com/articles/Integrating%20black%20draft%203.doc
(18) Dr Jason Arday Et al. p. 4
(19) Hannah Yelin (21/01/20) It’s not only Laurence Fox who should raise questions for the BBC after last week’s Question Time. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/laurence-fox-question-time-racism-fiona-bruce-bbc-a9294236.html
(20) Jamie Grierson (27/01/19) ‘My son was terrified’: how Prevent alienates UK Muslims. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/27/prevent-muslim-community-discrimination
(21) Lizzie Dearden (2020) Number of far-right referrals to counter-extremism programme hits record high. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/far-right-extremists-programme-prevent-counter-terrorism-record-a9253016.html
(22) Lizzie Dearden (19/09/19) Far right poses fastest growing terror threat to UK, head of terror police says. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/terror-attack-plots-uk-far-right-wing-extremism-threat-met-police-neil-basu-a9112046.html
We ask the question:
Is history “best qualified to reward our research”?
1) Why do Omowale Malcolm X’s views on education still resonate today?
2) Why shouldn’t the British Curriculum just reflect “Fundamental British Values”?
3) Will a “Black Curriculum” have an impact on white children?
4) How does the current political climate effect the implementation of a Black Curriculum?
5) How can supplementary schools help to advance this agenda?
Our Special Guest:
Sis. Lavinya Stennett: is a historian, writer and recent First-Class graduate from SOAS. The vision to create The Black Curriculum came from first hand experiences in British formal education, where she witnessed the effects of systemic disenfranchisement through the exclusion of Black pupils and Black British history. Young people learning general ‘Black history’ in the lone month of October was simply, not good enough. During her study abroad in Aotearoa, she was interested in the way Indigenous and colonial history was a part of the everyday and made accessible to everyone at all ages. She is determined to challenge the Eurocentricity of the school curriculum at a nationwide level. Lavinya believes in the power of education, and the arts to ultimately transform the lives of people. (https://www.theblackcurriculum.com/)
Chris Ogunlana and Michelle Mangal: from The Black Curriculum.