How to do Black History Month - tips for all sizes and budgets

Whether you're a huge company with deep pockets, or a microbusiness on a shoestring, I got you.

Of course, the most important thing isn’t the financial budget, it’s getting the tone right, celebrating black history month for the right reasons, with authenticity and integrity and including everyone.

Start with Why - “Self Pride Is The Catalyst For Achievement”

A quick recap of why Black History Month is even a thing.

US Black History Month, February 1976

In 1926, Carter G Woodson, the son of former slaves who had gained a Ph.D. in history from Harvard, created the first Black History Week to promote an expanded curriculum that included black history. The event was expanded to a month in 1970 and in 1976 the US president designated February as Black History month to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass (google him) and Abraham Lincoln.

UK Black History Month, October 1986

Fast forward to 1986 in the UK, Akyaaba Addai-Sebo a Ghanain analyst, recognised the identity crisis of those from the African diaspora, particularly when it was ‘unfashionable’ to be African in the UK. With support from Greater London Council, the first UK Black History Month was created. October was chosen to avoid the cold of February and to capitalise on a time when school children would be “fresh after the long summer vacation and had less to worry about exams and tests”.

Free Resources

Don’t be social-media-shamed into having to spend megabucks on speakers, merchandise, and giveaways if you don’t have the budget. You can see that the origins of BHM were nothing to do with splashing the cash so you don’t need to start now. But if you are known to have deep pockets and just don’t want to spend it on this, think carefully about the message that sends.

Share Daily Stories

Why not share a daily story of a prominent individual or event that encapsulates Black history and present-day legends. If it’s too much for one person to do, you can ask all employees for their contributions of who has inspired them or made an impact in their lives. Share the stories on your intranet, social media, or newsletters.

Book Clubs

For me, you can’t beat a good book club. However, they do take a big time commitment. If you put it out there now you can give people 3-4 weeks to read or listen to the book on audio and then come together to discuss the themes. My recommendations:

• Natives, Akala
• A Promised land, Barack Obama

TED Circles

Requiring slightly less time investment than a book club, you could encourage employees to watch the same TED talk and then come together over lunch (real or virtual) to discuss the themes. Here is a curated list of BHM TED talks to choose from. They are fairly US-centric and do focus heavily on racism, which of course is part of black history. Of these, the talk I would recommend for most organisations is Mellody Hobson, ‘Color Blind’ or ‘Color Brave’ which is a beautiful talk on how to have inclusive, supportive conversations about race in the workplace.

Webinars & Online Events

There are a plethora of free online events listed on Eventbrite - many include top speakers that would cost thousands if you were booking them exclusively. Share the list of events relevant to your teams or arrange to watch them together and have a discussion afterward.

Internal Speakers & Topics

BHM comes with a lot of pressure to hear different voices and potentially shell out for celebrity names. However, you have colleagues within your organisation that would like to be seen and heard (not just in October btw) but they might like to be invited to share their thoughts, either from their own lived experience or of someone who inspires them.

Lived experience

Tread carefully. Where some employees may feel honoured to be asked, others may just not feel like doing it or may be offended if they feel their views are not welcome in other conversations, and then they are only asked to speak up for BHM.

Allyship

Include all employees by having conversations about what real allyship looks like. Talk openly and bravely about touchy subjects like banter and microaggressions in the workplace. Use skilled facilitators to make sure these are safe and supportive spaces. Look for stories within black history of stories of allyship from other communities such as the working-class mill workers of Northern England, the stories of solidarity within the gay rights and feminist movements. These stories have a powerfully uniting effect and set an example of what inclusive change looks like.

External Speakers

For those that have the budget there are a plethora of speakers to choose from so how do you go about it?

Get a history expert

Don’t be tempted to just go for the only black or brown face you know, or have seen on social media. Remember the objectives of BHM and find someone who you are certain can do the topic justice. Two of the most eminent historians around black British history are David Olusoga OBE and Akala but this article?lists a whole host of others to choose from.

Make it relevant

Think about what your organisation needs and where you are on your journey to creating a truly inclusive workplace. Choose a speaker that will not only help you celebrate BHM but will also spark the conversations to propel you forwards in this space. If you’re in a science-based organisation that is mature in its discussions around race, I would highly recommend Angela Saini, author of Superior, to talk about the origins of race science.

Performers & Creatives

Think outside the box by not just having bog-standard public speakers. Perhaps there is an author you could invite to talk about their book or a spoken word artist. Think of seasoned writers like Benjamin Zephaniah and up-and-coming poets like Casey Bailey, author of the recently published collection, 'Please Do Not Touch'.

Make it current

Even though BHM is about celebrating a rich past there is nothing wrong with explicitly connecting it with today. Champion the people and organisations doing good work right now to change the narrative and advance the prospects of Black people in the pursuit of a fairer society.

Why doing nothing for BHM is not an option

Just in case you were wondering.

I fully recognise that we live in a very strange time of 'cancel culture' and that there is a risk you might get this (horribly) wrong or be criticised whatever you do. But right now there is an ongoing global conversation about race and social justice. Organisations that choose to do nothing for fear of doing or saying the wrong thing send a clear message about their fundamental inability to lead people when the going gets tough.

If you are one of those companies that made #BLM pledges in 2020 that you haven’t kept, then face up to that - be open, honest and explain what you have done, what you haven’t done and what you intend to do about it.

Getting BHM right may not be easy this year but if you weren’t committed to doing something about it you wouldn’t have read this far.

Cometh the hour, cometh the leader.