Black History Month
Every October Since 1987
The UK has marked Black History Month every October since 1987. It started in London, organised by Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, a Ghanaian working in the city. America marks its own in February: it grew out of Negro History Week, which the historian Carter G. Woodson started in 1926, and became a whole month in 1976.
British History, Full Stop
On 22 June 1948 the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, carrying people from the Caribbean who helped rebuild post-war Britain. In 1958 Claudia Jones founded the West Indian Gazette, and the Caribbean carnival she organised in 1959 is remembered as a forerunner of Notting Hill Carnival. In 1963 the Bristol Bus Boycott ended the colour bar on the city's buses, and the first Race Relations Act followed two years later.
Spend It Where It Builds
That history was made by people who built their own way in. The brands below are doing it right now: Black-owned, independent and selling online. Shop them this October, earn cashback on what you buy and keep the money moving through Black businesses.
