Joseph Harker is the Guardian’s deputy opinion editor, and Gaverne Bennett is a freelance creative director and educationalist. Having first devised their wallcharts series in 2008 to celebrate Black History Month, they have now updated them to highlight the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement of the past decade and capture recent events including the death of George Floyd in the US.
What information do the wallcharts depict? How did you decide what to include?
Bennett I spent a whole day in the British Library, and was aware very quickly. We wanted to use examples that people knew about as starting points. For example, people know about cowboys, but do they know about black cowboys? It was an interesting time because Obama was also running for president that year.
Harker Gaverne had consulted a huge number of academics, and done so much research, so I had a lot of confidence right off the bat. I knew we could do something really comprehensive. There’s a huge array of experts who helped bring the charts to life and make sure they were really accurate and comprehensive, including Marika Sherwood, Dr Anna Hartnell, Prof Dick Ellis, Prof Cecily Jones, Prof Richard Reid, Prof Henry Louis Gates, Prof Paul Gilroy, Prof Stephen Tuck, Dr Miranda Kaufmann, Prof Hakim Adi, Prof David Olusoga, ProfKehinde Andrews, Prof Stephen Small.
How did the idea for these wallcharts first come about in 2008?
Bennett In 1999 there was a TV programme about the history of different continents, but with no mention of Africa. They had a section that showed the three wise men from the Nativity story, and one of those was black. They seemed to be suggesting that black people were conveniently in the right place at the right time back then, but that they aren’t now, and I went to bed that night really angry about what I’d seen. I drew up some sketches about black history as I knew it, and since I was doing some freelance writing for a magazine at the time, I took the idea of a timeline to the editor, and the reaction was really positive, but it didn’t materialise. I used to read Joseph in the Guardian and his writing really chimed with me, so I got in touch. We got on really well, and things went from there.
Harker As soon as Gaverne showed me the idea of a timeline supplement back in 2008, I immediately thought it would appeal to Guardian readers – of all ages. Gaverne had a huge long scroll of paper. I took it to the then editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, and we were immediately given the green light and the funding. Having run a series of wallcharts and booklets, on nature, great speeches etc, we saw how much readers loved them, we were very keen to run one looking at black history. We were also working towards Black History Month in October that year – it was a lot of work to get it off the ground, but we pulled it off and it was well worth it. It was the most successful poster series the Guardian has ever done!
How does this updated series speak to the current situation?
Bennett I’m acutely aware that the decisions we make now will really impact future generations. We argued quite a lot about what to include, but I felt an even greater sense of responsibility this time around, perhaps because people are even more engaged with what’s happening and more switched-on in terms of the fight for racial equality.
Harker We’re having this historic Black Lives Matter moment, and people are even more aware about what’s happening now. But the tearing down of the Edward Colston statue drew people’s attention to the history. It feels as if British history has been put in the dock, and big institutions such as the Bank of England, universities are accepting that they have benefited from the profits of slavery and colonialism. It’s not all about Wilberforce and ending the slave trade. We know other things now that we perhaps didn’t know even as recently as 2008 – for example, that it took until 2015 to pay off the compensation that Britain granted to the slave owners in 1834, while those who were enslaved got nothing. We are only just now understanding how British history includes and cannot be considered without thinking about its race relations – and this knowledge can help us to know where we are now. The other big change is that social media has politicised and engaged people, and helped to further the conversations on the subject.
Who would you like to see reading them?
Bennett Absolutely everybody! I don’t want anyone to be able to say they haven’t heard about the key events in black history – there’s no excuse. But particularly young people. If they are able to connect the past with the present, we might stand a chance of doing better. If an attempt isn’t made to remember the events and mistakes of the past then it risks recurring. We also wanted to challenge some misconceptions. There was a medieval African ruler, Mansa Musa, who was the richest man in history – his elaborate pilgrimage to the Muslim holy city of Mecca in 1324 introduced him to rulers in the Middle East and Europe, so he came to be known the world over. He led a fascinating life, but when do we ever talk about him? I think that information can be an incredibly empowering thing and hopefully some of these stories will act as a springboard for some interesting discussions.
What impact are you hoping they will have?
Harker It’s very easy to think that black history started with slavery, so we started the wallchart with Septimius Severus, who was a Roman emperor who fought right up to Hadrian’s Wall and died in York. Imagine that – in the second century AD, Britain was ruled by an African. I think that would blow people’s minds. When we were compiling the charts, someone asked me how it was possible that the Kingdom of Kongo started in 1350, yet one of the emperors tried to stop the slave trade as late as 1560. They thought it was a typo until I explained that the empire had lasted centuries – it wasn’t just a flash in the pan, but a significant era.
We also learned about “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Greenwood district of the city had been a thriving black commercial centre and in 1921 was attacked by Klansmen, and the residents were driven out, with all economic opportunities denied to them. Then, just a few years ago, their story was brought to international attention in the Watchmen TV series.
Crucially, this isn’t a slavery timeline. There is so much more to black history than just that.
What more can be done to improve education on the subject of racial inequality in Britain, Europe and the west?
Bennett In the last few years, it’s become almost taboo to talk about the race divide. We need to be able to have open, honest, frank discussions with each other. Also, I think people need to think about race in an everyday way, and in everyday settings – ask questions of their BAME colleagues such as “What’s it like to work here?”, and to understand that for some people, stories like Windrush aren’t just news, they are real life.
Education around migration and the stories of people movement over the centuries is also really important for breaking down some of those echo chambers, so that people realise that individual families – and indeed entire nations – have incredibly rich and often diverse ancestors.
What sets the Guardian’s reporting apart from other publications on this subject?
Bennett The Guardian is relentless about getting the truth out, and that’s clear with some of its exclusive stories such as the Windrush scandal, the disproportionate number of BAME deaths from Covid-19. I’ve felt so respected and listened to by the Guardian and I think that’s part of its ethos of representing diverse voices, and being dedicated in its search for truth.
Harker There was never any doubt that this is the kind of coverage we should be doing, and I’m so proud to work for a paper that prioritises this important and often overlooked coverage. Katharine Viner, our editor-in-chief, has always been so supportive and enthusiastic about this work and knows it’s something our readers and supporters value – it’s not every publication where journalists have that freedom.
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If you didn’t catch the posters in the paper, but would like a copy, they are still available to buy online via the Guardian Bookshop.