Hidden Histories: These are the Black women we should learn about in school
Black women’s stories are often erased or deliberately hidden, Nova Reid's new podcast urges you to get to know the pioneering Caribbean women who have shaped our culture.
From London to Leeds to Jamaica, in her new podcast Hidden Histories, Nova Reid introduces listeners to the worlds of extraordinary Black women whose stories have been buried for too long.
Delving into the lives of pioneers, journalists, and rule-breakers, Reid unearths some of the remarkable figures of Caribbean heritage from the 18th-20th centuries who made vital contributions to civil rights, yet too many of them have been mythologised, forgotten, or erased from history.
For Reid, this work is about preserving important narratives and carving out space in the history books, it is about honouring their stories. Natalie Morris spoke to Reid to find out more…
How have the histories of Black women helped to shape British culture?
History is so often told by the conquerors and, usually, men. Hidden Histories subverts this and uncovers the untold stories of extraordinary Black women from the Caribbean who shaped world history, British culture, and society. The women are phenomenal and complicated and human and I would encourage readers to get to know them – because it’s the essence of who they were and what they did that shaped history.
My lessons in history where Black people were acknowledged beyond subjugation, came as an adult. Most of my education at school was centred around Christopher Columbus, King Henry VIII and the Tudors. I had very little interest in history when I was younger as a result. It was dry.
Why hadn’t I been taught about empowering stories from pioneers at school? Like Cubah Cornwallis, a powerful healer who used plant medicine and even ended up healing a future King of England, or about Queen Nanny of the Maroons – a spiritual warrior who absolutely annihilated British colonial forces. Or Kittian, Gertrude Paul the first headteacher in the North of England, who was one of the pioneers of Saturday Schools (supplementary schools) in the UK?
Which story speaks to you the most on a personal level?
My story is woven through all of these women – all of them are from the Caribbean, as am I – so my humanity is intricately tied to theirs and my own personal experiences are threaded throughout; they all speak to me.
The episode on Cubah Cornwallis is probably my favourite as it explores so many aspects of healing and it was so much fun to record with some Rastafari in Jamaica.
Revolutionary, Olive Morris, was one of a key group of women who put Black radical feminism on the map in Britian. I personally love that we manage to get to the essence of her playful and feisty character. We look at when Blackness and queerness intersect and how homophobia can reveal itself and leave listeners with the reality that even though activist spaces are supposed to be, they aren’t always safe for everyone.
Olive’s story also stands out because of her premature death. Her symptoms were dismissed by doctors, which is something so many Black women continue to experience – along with the exploration of grief when we lose people we love – both of which I have personal experience with.
“Children are not being taught a complete picture of history in British schools and too often they are taught inaccurate or sanitised accounts of history.”
I think Barbara Blake-Hannah – Jamaican journalist and the UK’s first Black female TV reporter – impacted me the most. Not just because of what happened to her while she was in Britain, or her gorgeous vitality, or that she originally declined to be in the show, but because she is our only living pioneer. To hear her tell her own story and express such gratitude for choosing to feature her, was very special.
Barbara’s time in Britian was hostile and at times, corrosive to her mental health – but rather than stay here like most of my family did after migrating from Jamaica as part of the Windrush – she chose to go where she was loved and returned to Jamaica. I am sure this has contributed to her living a long life and with such joy. It has made me reflect on my own path and has inspired me to spend more time in Jamaica.
Why do so many stories of Black women end up hidden or forgotten?
Misogynoir – a term coined by Dr Moya Bailey – the combined experience of sexism and racism, worse than experiencing either on its own – means Black women’s work is often erased, passed off as others’ or deliberately hidden. It’s a persisting systemic and historical issue. Powerful intelligent and accomplished Black women are a threat to society.
Our last episode – which is an ode to unnamed women in history – was quite special to write. In my time at school if I did learn about African people, it was dehumanising or limited to subjugation only, never tales of resistance. What I love about some of the accounts of resistance from the women’s whose names were not recorded, but their small acts, still mighty, were enough to be recorded in merchants’ diaries.
In the diary of Matthew Gregory Lewis, a plantation owner of Cornwall Estate in Western Jamaica, women used what they had available to them and engaged in collective protest refusing to take out the rubbish.
He also writes about when an enslaved woman, ironically named ‘Industry’, modelled how to resist capitalism and was taken to court in Jamaica, for, in his words, “refusing to work and setting a bad example to other negroes.”
There’s something right here about refusal of work – with rest quite literally, being used as a method of resistance way back in 1831 – we can learn something from these women and we can humanise them by remembering them.
Thinking about history in schools – is the UK curriculum doing a good enough job?
I wouldn’t say children are being taught the wrong things as schools – it isn’t as binary as that, but they are not being taught a complete picture of history in British schools and too often they are taught inaccurate or sanitised accounts of history – which is contributing to breeding generations of adults who are both historically and racially illiterate, and that is a problem.
The curriculum is not doing a good enough job to help raise racially and historically literate children and prepare them for the world of our times. Teachers are being failed with inadequate training, which contributes to not just a lack of skill and knowledge, but a lack of confidence in teaching history – especially history that centres race and Black people beyond subjugation. Too many aren’t better informing themselves due to fear, embarrassment, and lack of desire. That doesn’t help the next generation, it hinders them.
Some of the reasons behind persisting historical illiteracy and cultural incompetence in Britain, is also down to the deliberate erasure of historical records. Operation Legacy was implemented in the 1950s, where the British state engaged in a major systemic cover up to hide, burn, or throw overboard thousands upon thousands of historical records that might show Britain to have religious or racial intolerance or implicate or embarrass the British monarchy about Britain’s role in colonial violence in its colonies. The impact of this is far reaching.
Historian David Olusoga once said that our schools’ curriculums are similar to what they were in the 1950s – that’s unacceptable to me. It is our responsibility to seek out and learn our own history without waiting for curriculums to catch up, while simultaneously putting pressure on schools, publishing houses and governments and bodies to better prepare teachers and young people.
It’s why one of our pioneers – Gertrude Paul an educational leader and headteacher in Leeds – spent her spare time bridging the gap by setting up Saturday Schools in the 1970s that centred Black centred history. They were incredibly popular.
She recognised there was a deficit in what the curriculum was teaching children, which was also having a detrimental impact on self-esteem. Gertrude Paul was decolonising the curriculum long before we even had the term for it. For many Caribbean communities’ education is a vehicle for social mobility. Teaching and equipping her community was Gertrude’s way to resist, expand knowledge of cultural history and build self-esteem in young people and I loved learning about some of her story.
About the author: Nova Reid is a creative entrepreneur, producer, TED speaker and writer. She is host and executive producer of her most recent Audible Original project, Hidden Histories with Nova Reid. Nova has written for major publications including The Guardian, Vogue and Elle Magazine, and she is the author of The Good Ally.
At The Lead we are always interested in untold stories. From the young people stigmatised with a personality disorder diagnosis, to the plight of home educated children facing an uncertain future. In culture, we have brought you a discussion on Malcolm X’s legacy on the 100 year anniversary of his birth, and the exhibition exploring migration and Britishness. You can support our reporting by becoming a paid subscriber to The Lead.
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