Why do we need Black History Month? Because too many people still reject it | Diane Abbott

Black History Month has never been more relevant than in 2020. The Black Lives Matter movement has swept blackness to the heart of the political discourse. For me, it brings back memories of the upsurge of black activism in the 1980s, when I first entered politics.

In the 1980s, black people took to the streets of the UK, which partly reflected the US civil rights movement, but was also about the emergence of a new generation of black activists in this country., south London, in 1981. And there were other related uprisings in , Birmingham; , west London; , Liverpool; in Nottingham; and in Manchester. Black people taking to the streets in the 80s was probably the single most important factor in moving the fight for racial justice up the political agenda, and led to the election of myself and three other people as the . It also made initiatives such as Black History Month possible.