Black History Month

Black History Month celebrates the protected characteristic of Race and is marked in October every year. It focusses on the history of Asian, African and African-Caribbean people and provides us with the opportunity to promote knowledge of black history, culture and heritage. Black History Month also offers us the chance to reflect on the contribution which Black and Minority Ethnic Groups (BME) have made to shaping Scotland’s history and we recognise the valuable role which BME people make to our local communities.

Did you know that the north-east played its own unique role in Black History? In 1825, at a public meeting of the Exchange News Rooms on Union Street, an Aberdonian grocer, George Brantingham, established the Aberdeen Anti-Slavery Society. The membership of the Aberdeen Anti-Slavery Society included leading citizens of Aberdeenshire, most notably academics and clergymen.

One particular form of activism from the Aberdeen Anti-Slavery Society was initiated by Brantingham, who stocked his grocery shop with sugar imported from India so that his customers would be able to purchase goods which were not produced by slaves. The society also produced anti-slavery publications which were made available for sale and printed at the expense of David Chalmers & Co, publishers of the Aberdeen Journal. It was small pockets of local activism which brought momentum to the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, one of the most successful reform movements of the 19th century.

For more information on Scotland’s involvement

in slavery and its abolition please visit the Black History Month UK

website.

For more information on Equalities please visit the Equalities pages

on Arcadia.