October 2021 Editor’s Letter: How we’re celebrating Black History Month at HLN

We’ll be taking a look at some of the North East’s contributions to Black history and culture over the centuries and present. As well as celebrating the achievements of women of colour all month.

Proud To Be

Black History Month is here.

It’s now over one year since The Black Lives Matter protests resulted from the death of George Floyd, where hundreds of thousands of voices raising awareness of racial inequality were heard. This led to historic statues being taken down and names removed of people related to slavery, as well as celebrities, MPs and sportspeople taking the knee at current events to show that racism is not accepted.

But racism is, unfortunately, still present, with recent racial abuse towards our very own England football players in the Euros, police brutality still affecting Black people far more severely – and fatally – compared to many of their white counterparts, and modern slavery still happening.

That’s why celebrating Black History Month is so important, and I’m so pleased that High Life North can provide a platform for women in the North East to do this. The theme this year is ‘Proud To Be’ – encouraging us to celebrate who we are and to inspire and share the pride people have in their heritage and culture in their own words and way. Whilst also focusing on how we’re all making history in our own way.

Here’s a little spoiler for you. Our Editorial team got the memo. They’ve prepared a month of inspiring interviews – from today’s Ngozi Ossai, a biomedical student providing products that help women with afro hair to embrace their natural weave, to founder of charity Teakisi – and friend of HLN – Salha Kaitesi. We’ll also be checking back in with MP for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Chi Onwurah after our chat with her last year, and we’ve got a fab Meet the Musician lined up with the super-talented Georgia May.

To kick things off, today we’ve taken a journey through the North East’s regional history and how it has impacted Black history and culture, from the abolishment of the Slave Trade through to how the recent Black Lives Matter movement affected our region.

We’ll hopefully see you at some of the events below – make sure you come and say hello!

Laura -x-

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