Azana Francis dislikes the downsizing of black history.
‘It’s over there, love,’ says the librarian, pointing to a small wall of pictures in Tower Hamlets’ Idea Store in Bow (part-library, part-caff, a bit naff).
I have come in search of ‘Soldiers of War’, an exhibition mounted as part of Black History Month in honour of the four million men and women from Britain’s colonies who put their lives on the line for King and Empire during the two world wars of the twentieth century.
Men such as Walter Tull, who became the first black officer in the British Army, despite laws and regulations – still in force in 1914 – designed to prevent blacks from leading whites into battle.
Going over to the display, I find it contains important information and evocative images of people whose stories have been ignored or suppressed for far too long. But while acknowledging this, I keep thinking: ‘this can’t be it.’
How can the life-or-death experience of so many souls be minimised into so few square inches, tucked away between beauty shops and blocks of flats in probably the most low profile high street in East London?
Don’t get me wrong, I was not expecting anything on the scale of the National Gallery. I am not demanding a state funeral for all the non-whites who died to keep the flag flying – a Union Jack flag with absolutely no black in it.
But if Black History Month is downsized to this degree – especially this year when our month-long remembrance coincides with the First World War centennial, it hardly measures up to the scale of human suffering and sacrifice which it is meant to represent.
When he was Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone put the case for Black History Month as follows:
‘In order to enrich the cultural diversity of the Greater London area, it is imperative that Londoners know more about African influences on medieval and renaissance European music so that accepted ideas about European music are changed. Despite the significant role that Africa and its Diaspora have played in world civilization since the beginning of time, Africa’s contribution has been omitted or distorted in most history books.’
In Livingstone’s prospectus, Black History Month had a big job to do. Today it is imperative that we re-capture the scope of that ambition.
Whereas if we let it carry on without the wow! factor, it’s almost as if we are belittling our own past.