My paternal grandparents are originally from Barbados and moved over to Britain some time after the war, they were here by the time my dad was born in the early 60s. I’m not going to lie some of the things in this book were pretty hard for me to read. Although really, I probably shouldn’t be so surprised…

Other things I was less familiar with, I knew my great grandfather had fought for the Empire during the Second World War and had received an honour for it, I hadn’t quite appreciated the general attitude from the British Government towards all these people who willingly put their lives on the line for this country, so many miles across the ocean from the land they called home. I also had some knowledge about Britain’s role in the ending of the slave trade, particularly that it wasn’t quite as heroic as some people would perhaps like you to believe, and that when it was finally over it was the slave owners rather than the people who had had their freedom ripped away that were compensated. Some bits of history included within the book I was already familiar with, the idea that there were Black people in Britain during the Roman period and in Tudor times. I guess it was much easier to look at the things that happened in America and learn about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr than it would be to reflect on the part our own country played in that history. What little Black history we did look at during my time at school was limited to the American Civil Rights Movement. Most of my knowledge comes from things my dad taught and exposed me too, rather than anything I was taught during school. I grew up in semi-rural Devon in the 90s, multi cultural it was not, but my dad was part of the far South West Black Networking Group and I remember going to Black family days and exhibitions. I’m mixed race, with a White mother and a Black British father.

Let’s start off with a little bit of my history to put this review into some context. So what I presumed was that there must not have been any Black people in British history Black and British: A short, essential history by David Olusoga

None of the Black people from the past who we know about today were ever mentioned by my teachers, and my textbooks contained nothing about the role Black people have played in the story of Britain. When I was at school there was no Black history.

Black and british by david olusoga