Black History Month - "Saluting our Sisters"

Yesterday I posted this internally at work and I thought I'd share with my LinkedIn friends too.

...... This morning when I went on my Peloton I was presented with BHM themed spin classes and I thought, maybe I should share a history lesson, that I was taught many years ago, wider as part of Black History Month by "saluting a sister" (5 mins read & disclosure these are not my own words but copied from other sources)

Black History Month is an occasion to recognise and celebrate the invaluable contributions of Black people to British society. The theme for Black History Month in 2023 is ‘Saluting our Sisters’, highlighting the crucial role Black women have played in shaping history, inspiring change and building communities.

Many of us have heard about the amazing work of Florence Nightingale, but do you also know of Mary Seacole?

Mary Seacole was born in Jamaica more than 200 years ago. This was during the period when many black people in the Caribbean were forced to work as slaves. Although Mary’s mother was black, her father James Grant was a white Scottish army officer and Mary was born a ‘free person’.

Mary’s mother ran a lodging house, called Blundell Hall, which was much respected by local people in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital city. But she was also a healer and taught Mary many of her skills using traditional Jamaican medicines. A keen student from early childhood, Mary practised medicine on her doll, dogs and cats, and on herself.

By 1818, aged 12, Mary helped run the boarding house, where many of the guests were sick or injured soldiers. Three years later, she travelled to England with relatives and stayed for about a year. It was an opportunity to acquire knowledge about modern European medicine which supplemented her training in traditional Caribbean techniques.

In 1823, Mary went to London on her own, remaining there for 2 years. She experienced racist comments while in London. She describes herself as “only a little” brown, but her friend was very dark so London boys made fun of their complexions. During 1825, her travels included Cuba, Haiti and the Bahamas, returning to Kingston in 1826 to nurse her patroness in a long illness.

In 1850, she nursed victims of the Kingston cholera epidemic. travelling to Panama in 1851 only to find that her skills were needed once again because the town of Cruces was suffering its own outbreak of the disease.

In 1853, Mary returned to Kingston, caring for victims of a yellow fever epidemic. She was invited by the medical authorities to supervise nursing services at Up-Park in Kingston, the British Army’s headquarters, and she re-organised New Blundell Hall, her mother’s former lodging house rebuilt after a fire, to function as a hospital. Mary had no children of her own, but the strong maternal attachments she formed with these soldiers, and her feelings for them, would later drive Mary to the Crimea.

The Crimean War lasted from October 1853 until February 1856. It was fought by a coalition including Britain, against the Russian Empire. Mary travelled to England and approached the British War Office, asking to be sent as an army nurse to the Crimea where she had heard there were poor medical facilities for wounded soldiers. She was refused.

Undaunted, she funded her own trip to Crimea, now part of Ukraine, where she established the British Hotel with Thomas Day, a relative of her husband, Edwin. The hotel provided a place of respite for sick and recovering soldiers. At the time, Mary was as well-known in Britain as Florence Nightingale. Ms Nightingale’s famous military hospital was situated hundreds of miles from the frontline in Scutari (now called üsküdar, just outside the Turkish city of Istanbul). But Mary’s hotel near Balaclava was much closer to the fighting. Mary was able to visit the battlefield, sometimes under fire, to nurse the wounded. Indeed, she nursed sick soldiers so kindly that they called her ‘Mother Seacole’.

When the war ended, Mary went back to Britain with very little money. Soldiers wrote letters to newspapers, praising what she had done. All those who admired her came to her aid, whether soldiers, generals or members of the Royal family. In 1857 a fund-raising gala was held for her over four nights on the banks of the River Thames. Over 80,000 people attended. The same year she published her autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, which became an instant bestseller.

Mary died in London in 1881. Unfortunately, she was then lost to history for around 100 years until nurses from the Caribbean visited her grave in North West London, where the local MP, now Lord Clive Soley, promised to raise money for a statue for Mary. In 2004, Mary was voted the Greatest Black Briton. The statue was finally unveiled in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital on London’s Southbank.

Her legacy is continued by the Mary Seacole Trust (MST) which, as well as maintaining the statue, aims to educate and inform the public about her life, work and achievements, ensuring that she is never again lost to history.

I hope you have found this interesting and worthy of "saluting a sister". Check out more on Black History Month with events and TV programmes dedicated to the celebration ... a decent source of more info can also be found here Black History Month in Britain: Great women you should know about - BBC Newsround

#Blackhistorymonth #BHM