UK Lacks National Reckoning on Colonialism, Says Activist
Lavinya Stennett, founder of The Black Curriculum, argues the UK has failed to confront its colonial history, harming young people's identity.
The United Kingdom has not undergone a national reckoning regarding its role in colonialism and the impact on young people today, according to activist Lavinya Stennett. Stennett, 29, is the founder and CEO of The Black Curriculum, an educational initiative working to change that through teacher training and direct work in schools.
Stennett's perspective was shaped by her university studies in African Studies at SOAS, which she accessed through clearing in 2016. She describes learning from African lecturers as a "grounding experience," contrasting it with prior education that focused narrowly on enslavement without empowerment. A scholarship to Aotearoa New Zealand further contextualized issues of colonization and land theft.
The Birth of The Black Curriculum
The absence of Black history in the official national curriculum prompted Stennett to act. She observed that while Saturday schools and alternative Black education existed, they were not part of the core educational framework. The Black Curriculum was founded to fill this gap. Its primary aim is to let all students with a sense of identity and belonging by providing access to knowledge on cultural and national history.
The organization's work focuses on three main areas: training teachers, working directly with young people, and campaigning. It seeks to embed Black history into the national curriculum permanently. Their reach extends beyond standard schools to prisons and museums, aiming for broad societal education.
Global Impact and Educational Reach
Interest in The Black Curriculum grew organically, starting with three schools in South London and expanding across London and Manchester. Following the killing of George Floyd, the organization received inquiries from schools in Canada and the United States eager to incorporate its materials. Stennett reports that internal assessments from 2020 to 2024 show students, both Black and white, gain improved confidence after completing their course.
The program does not impose a single scheme of work. Instead, it provides flexible resources including a zine created by young people, animations, podcasts, and digital and physical learning materials. To date, the initiative has reached over 25,000 educators and young people combined and has built a large social media following.
The Case for Reparatory Justice
Stennett directly links this educational work to the broader need for reparatory justice. She argues that truth-telling in history must lead to tangible change, not only recollection. "It's about building a consciousness within the peoples of the world to shift structures and systems that are affecting us," she states. Reparations are framed as repairing ongoing harms and specific historical injuries experienced by people of African descent.
She points to the pervasive impact of enslavement on countries, cultures, and languages. For Stennett, who is from Jamaica, this includes a loss of specific cultural identity and community knowledge that cannot be recovered by means like DNA tests. She connects postwar migration patterns, where people from colonies were brought to Britain to aid reconstruction, to forced poverty and a lack of choice.
Britain and other colonial powers, she contends, have a duty to address contemporary ills like discrimination in healthcare and education disparities, which she traces back to colonialism. This redress, she argues, needs to occur under a framework of reparations. Stennett recently shared this message in Ghana and Kenya, connecting with young people passionate about confronting colonial legacies. She describes her work not as a privilege, but as an honored rite of passage.
