ZOOM EVENT Wednesday 9^th December

Last night we had brilliant end to our first Zoom term with, as ever, a large supportive audience who participated with lots of questions at the end.  Dr Patrick Vernon gave us a very personal historical talk about his project ‘100 Great Black Britons.’ Starting with his school days in Wolverhampton Patrick discussed how the education system often let down young black Britons leaving them with no knowledge of their place in British History.  He talked about how his successful career in the NHS and his voluntary work as a mentor to young Black people had led first to his ‘Every Generation’ website and then this project. He has been involved in it for over seventeen years. He was very funny in discussing his reaction to the BBC’s original series 100 Great Britons and their problems in the noughties with tackling Black British History.  The website that he and Dr Angelina Osborne set up was so obviously needed that when it opened it crashed within hours because of the interest.  He highlighted how in 2013 working with Nick Clegg he had saved the place of Mary Seacole and Olaudah Equiano in Michael Gove’s revision of the History National Curriculum.  Patrick explained the criteria for inclusion in the new version of 100 Great Black Britons which spans from the Tudor period to the present day including overcoming barriers, being at the top of their field and using their privilege to help their community.  What was most inspirational about Patrick’s talk was the many ways he has given his time to make History available and lively including designing a board game about migration which encouraged story telling and campaigning for the ‘Windrush Day’ to be remembered annually. Not only was this a great talk about Black History, it was great inspiration to the hear that History is more than what written in books and taught in universities. However the book ‘100 Great Black Britons’ is available on Amazon  and includes the list of 1,000 nominations which sounds like a great starting place for further research!!!