Foreword: Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Something worth celebrating.

BLACK History Month is a great opportunity to raise awareness of the significance of the UK’s black history, and remember the lives and achievements of those whose stories have too often been ignored.

One aspect of black, and UK, history has been particularly prominent in peoples’ minds of late. Last year’s 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act gave us the chance to reflect on the appalling suffering caused to millions of people. At the conclusion of the Bicentenary, we announced our intention to commemorate the slave trade and its abolition every year, and incorporate it as a compulsory part of the national curriculum in schools.

But Black History Month is also a time to celebrate. Britain today is stronger because of the contribution our diverse ethnic minority communities have made to our institutions and culture. Today we are a modern, open nation, celebrating the different communities that enrich our culture and our economy - and I am determined to do more to encourage and support the very best of British talent. I want to build a Britain where it is someone’s ideas and abilities, and not their race, that counts, and that’s why I’m committed to the legislation we need to protect people against unfair discrimination.

But freeing people from discrimination is only part of the picture. Equally important is inspirational leadership to help overcome entrenched disadvantage. Too many black mothers complain that their sons don’t have male role models to look up to. So we’re using a pioneering approach - called the REACH programme - to improve the visibility of black male role models.
Black history month can help inspire the next generation of young people - both men and women, black and white - to write their own chapter of history. That’s something worth celebrating.

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister