The man who started Black History Month Akyaaba Addai-Sebo tells The Voice how he persuaded the Greater London Council to begin the event in 1987 By: LeahMahon_
Akyaaba Addai-Sebo tells The Voice how he persuaded the Greater London Council to begin the event in 1987
Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, arrived in Britain from Ghana after fleeing political corruption, and soon joined the Greater London Council [GLC] in 1985 where he worked in the Ethnic Minorities Unit during the leadership of Ken Livingstone.In the years that followed he witnessed hundreds of West Indian children forced into schools for the “educationally subnormal”. In the 1980s tension between Black communities and the police imploded and racial inequality in Britain was endemic.
“One day, I went to work and our secretary [at the Greater London Council] looked very downcast and was almost in tears. I asked her what was wrong, and then she said, ‘Would you believe it? I was putting Marcus to bed last night and after prayers as I was leaving the room, he called me and said, ‘Mum, why can’t I be white?,” he recalled.
The likes of Livingstone, former Lambeth Council leader Linda Bellos, Lord Paul Boateng, and policy adviser Ansel Wong were all at the Greater London Council when Akyaaba came with proposals on how to transform the prospects of Black children growing up in Britain. Black History Month was formally celebrated in February to mark the birthdays of the great abolitionist Fredrick Douglas and President Abraham Lincoln, who supported the abolition of slavery.
The Notting Hill Carnival, a celebration of Caribbean culture that drew in all corners of black Briton, was held in August and so he pushed back against the critics and explained that the Trinidad and Rio carnivals were held every year in April.
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