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cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/571852
Exclusive: Majority of British people found to have ‘shockingly little’ knowledge about Black British history
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“She would have expected people to name figures such as Quintus Lollius Urbicus, who became governor of Roman Britain; the formerly enslaved Olaudah Equiano, who became an abolitionist and writer; Mary Seacole, who provided sustenance and care for British soldiers during the Crimean war, and the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.”
I’ve literally never heard of any of these people… schools don’t cover them - I couldn’t name any white romans either from the UK… Obviously I’ve heard of some of the emperors, but that’s it.
Quintus Lollius Urbicus was a Berber, while from Africa they aren’t really black.
Honestly that list sounds like scraping the barrel for an outrage clickbait article.
Mary Seacole is taught about in schools these days, alongside Florence Nightingale as I helped my friends’ son with his homework on that one.
I was aware of Quintus Lollius Urbicus but don’t think I could remember his name off the top of my head. I might stash it away now for future reference. He was born in Numidia and died in Rome, so if we use that definition you can claim Julius Caesar as white Roman historical figure. And Hadrian who built The Wall.
I have heard of Mary Seacole. Never knew she was black though.
I’d heard of Coleridge. Victorian poet and friend of Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. He wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner which Iron Maiden covered some years later.
I’d heard of Coleridge.
Oooooooops.
Now I look like a silly billy.
I may have thought “Coleridge was black?” and then Googled it to find out. If you are going to get anyone confused it’s probably be Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
The only Romans I know are the ones from Plebs I’m sure that’s historically accurate.
Probably because historically there weren’t many black British people? Especially not amongst those who wrote most history books, ie, the aristocracy and bourgeoisie.
Not wishing to diminish the headline, but I think your average Brit probably has a pretty poor understanding of British History that falls outside of the ‘WW2’ years.
Ultimately we know what we’re taught, and unless it’s changed significantly in the last 15 years then you’re basically taught about the Cold War and Vietnam, some random WW2 things and that’s about it?
And 1066. I can’t remember what actually happened then but the year is burned into my brain.
Lots of henry VIII and of course the gunpowder plot every year in November.
And 1066. I can’t remember what actually happened then but the year is burned into my brain.
Rings a bell. I think England beat Germany in the World Cup…
I’m from NI and I learned about the Norman conquest of England, post-WW1 Germany, and the Irish war of independence + the following civil war.
I loved history at school and I still love it now!
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I’m still amazed my history GCSE, in the 90s, didn’t cover the empire at all. You can’t understand world history without the British Empire, let alone Britain’s. It was agricultural and industrial revolutions. In complete isolation from the world, bar one mention of shipments of guano. Utter rubbish.
The fact that most people don’t know the name of James Somerset is a sad indictment of how history is taught in this country. Somerset had been brought to Britain from Massachusetts against his will as a slave by a Scottish slaver called Charles Stewart. After he got here, Somerset ran away and then, when Stewart tried to re-enslave him, he sought to assert his freedom with the support of abolitionists.
The Somerset vs Stewart case of 1772 - in which the court found that there was not and never had been a common law institution of slavery in England and Wales, and therefore that a black man setting foot here would instantly become a free man - was a monumental moment in our country’s history and set the scene for Britain eventually taking a global lead in combating the scourge of slavery in the 19th century. There were supposedly around 15,000 black people living in Britain at the time, many of them living in some form of de facto slavery, and the court’s ruling was a cause for great celebration among the black community, and remains a proud moment in British history centuries later.
Children should learn James Somerset’s name in school.
Never heard of the chap, but I’ll definitely learn more about him now.
Lenny Henry
Hysterical perhaps but historical…?
He was on the scene in 1975! That’s, like, even further back into the 1900s than there has been 21st century
That’s definitely one way of looking at it.
I could name a couple of local ones to me, plus Mary Seacole because she comes up a fair bit in these discussions.
