October is Black History Month in the UK, an event that has been celebrated nationwide for more than 30 years. The month was originally founded to recognise the contributions that people of African and Caribbean backgrounds have made to the UK over many generations.  Now, Black History Month has expanded to include the history of not just African and Caribbean people but black people in general.

Black History Month always provides a fantastic opportunity for us to recognize the outstanding contributions black people have had here in the UK and across the globe. At our community art sessions (run by Medway Adult Education) from the HeArt space at the Pentagon Shopping Centre we have during October been sketching people we know or famous people around this subject.

One member of the group created an image of Rosa Louise Parks who was is globally recognized as the “mother of the modern day civil rights movement” in America. Her refusal to surrender her seat to a white male passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, December 1, 1955, triggered a wave of protest December 5, 1955 that reverberated throughout the United States. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history.

Additionally also please take time to read the below an article about Asquith Xavier who lived in the Arches Local and was a brave family man who faced racial discrimination in the workplace and managed to beat the “colour bar”

Omitted from History: Asquith Xavier  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/49883230

https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/