October 2022 marks 35 years since Black History Month was first celebrated in the UK. The brainchild of Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, it has been used as a way to celebrate, commemorate, and acknowledge Britain’s Black population and history.
“Something had to be done to make the Black child believe in themselves,” Addai-Sebo wrote in a CNN piece in 2020. “What stirred in me was the urgency of creating a permanent celebration in the UK of Africa’s contribution to world civilization from antiquity to the present, and especially its contribution to the development of London, and the United Kingdom.”
Thirty-five years later, it is the main method by which children and adults across the country learn about Black British history.
