- “What is Black History Month?”
- “Tell me about Black History Month.”
- “Tell me about Queen Amina.”
- “Tell me about Ignatius Sancho.”
Page overview
Aisha Suleiman, Executive Board Director of BEN and Program Manager, AWS Educate
Onyinye’s work inspired Aisha to get in touch about commissioning original illustrations for Black History Month. In fact, Aisha has Onyinye’s work hanging at home.“I saw Onyinye’s ‘Queens of Africa’ illustrations and loved her work, so I bought one for myself! I also realised that working with Onyinye would be a great way to celebrate these stories and bring them to a wider audience through Amazon and BEN.”
“My family comes from northern Nigeria, a place of rich culture and great food, but historically it’s a male-dominated society.” With that history in mind, Aisha chose Queen Amina as somebody who bucked the trend.
“Queen Amina is really cool – in the 1600s, she was not only training to be a soldier but also leading men into battle. You can imagine the societal expectations she had to overcome. She’s now a legend in Nigeria for her strength, spirit of womanhood and courage. Her courage inspires me to push through problems and do my own thing.”
Ramat selected Queen Nanny due to her own Ghanaian roots and her fearless, community-minded leadership. “I love Queen Nanny! She was captured in Ghana and taken to Jamaica, but she managed to escape slavery and became a fearless warrior who cared for her community and brought them together when she became the leader of a maroon settlement called Nanny town in 1720.”
“Queen Nanny wanted people to be self-sufficient and she was a herbalist, so she was always sharing ways for the community to tackle health problems. I really respect the way she was community-minded and fighting for the rights of her people.”
That inspires Ramat’s work with AWS Get IT, which empowers young people, especially girls, to engage with tech, innovation and engineering careers. “Tomorrow I’ve got nearly 500 students coming into the office, which is an incredibly opportunity to get more young people thinking about their careers and communities.”
Frederic is a long-standing BEN member who has been thinking about how the employee affinity group can communicate and celebrate the history of black identity and achievement in new ways. He feels Onyinye’s illustrations are a brilliant way to tell these stories and to share them with young people.
“I was born in France, so as a French-speaker Toussaint is easy to relate to. He was a character who my father could speak about non-stop. You could almost make a movie about his life because he captures the complexity of that time.”
“Toussaint was born a slave and bought his freedom in his mid-thirties, going on to lead the world’s largest slave revolt in the French colony of St Domingue. His actions helped Haiti gain its independence. His story reminds me that we always have hard decisions to make, especially when you want to maximise your impact on the world.”
For Lucinda, working with BEN and Black History Month is not just about looking at the dark side of history – it’s also about celebrating the good times. “As Africans and as black British people, we bring the noise, we’re vibrant, we love food, we get the party going!”
“My family’s Ghanaian and I’m proud to identify as both British and Ghanaian. That’s why I picked Yaa Asantewaa, she’s from a similar area in Ghana to my father. She fought colonialism as a top warrior and won against the British army at the time. She was determined and forceful – and those traits shimmer through us today.”
For young people today, Lucinda wants to send a positive message about representation: “Sometimes you need to dig deeper, go further and think differently to find your inspiration.”
Becky leads communications for BEN and she’s excited to get started. “As somebody who’s mixed race – of Guyanese and Sri Lankan descent – I understand why it’s important that we build an inclusive and diverse environment. But we also know that it takes willpower and innovative thinking to ensure we always communicate the huge value of inclusivity.”
With Asian and Caribbean heritage, but born and raised in London, Becky has a broad perspective on how we identify and relate to the past. “Those cultures have defined my viewpoint on life, especially the importance of being accepting and tolerant of others.”
“I chose Olaudah Equiano because he has such an incredible story – he was an enslaved man who bought his freedom and became a campaigner to abolish the slave trade. As a free man, he worked for the Royal Navy and wrote a bestselling autobiography on the horrors of slavery which influenced the passing of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.”
