Find out more: Black Education Movement

Over the next ten weeks I will share resources to find out more about each of the movements I discuss in The Shoulders We Stand On: How Black and Brown people fought for change in the UK.

The resources will mostly be free, and will cover a range of mediums including articles, videos, podcasts and radio programmes. Follow me on Twitter to be the first to know when a new list has been posted.

Bernard Coard’s impactful book

The Black Education Movement was the umbrella term for the many organisations working on issues around Black children in education, including those labelled as ‘educationally subnormal’.

The George Padmore Institute archive holds a magnificent collection of BEM material, and a lovely summary is in the link.

This subject guide from the Black Cultural Archives has key information and a wonderful timeline.

You can’t talk about education in that era without discussing Bernard Coard’s ‘How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal’, which was reissued in 2021 (and is the only paid resource on this list).

And you can read here from Bernard Coard in the Guardian about why he wrote the book.

Read an article from Black Voice in 1985 entitled ‘Black Educational Struggle’ to learn more about what life looked like for Black students.

The interim Rampton Report of 1981 into ‘West Indian children in our schools’ is a fascinating read, as is the final Swann Report of 1985 ‘Education for All’.

For more on the enduring importance of Supplementary Schools for Black children, see this Grazia article and this Black Ballad piece. 

Another episode of Steve McQueen’s fantastic Small Axe series dealt with the issue of education, available on BBC iPlayer, or Amazon Prime.

And this fantastic BBC documentary - Subnormal: A British scandal - speaks to people who were labelled as ‘subnormal’ and shows how the impact has lasted a lifetime.

And if you are seeing this but haven’t read the book I’m referring to, then what are you waiting for?! Get your copy of The Shoulders We Stand On now.