Artwork by Sacrée Frangine

Whilst our Instagram feeds flooded with black squares on #BlackOutTuesday the team and I spent some time reading, listening, learning and sitting in the uncomfortable feeling that we must embrace to move towards change.

We found some incredible resources, activists, artists and all-round inspiring content and I will use my platform to share these #AmplifyMelanatedVoices. Please take some time to explore this list, it is by no means exhaustive, but it is somewhere to start your own journey, in unlearning unconscious bias and acknowledging that simply not being racist, is not enough. We must be better allies and learn to be anti-racist, once and for all.

Activists, campaigners and prominent Black voices:

• Rachel Cargle
• Nova Reid
• Natalie Lee, Style Me Sunday
• Tinuke Bernard
• Kristabel
• Cynthia Andrew
• Aja Barber

Please remember it is your responsibility to educate yourself. So follow, listen and support these brilliant people, but do not expect them to answer your 1:1 questions or messages. Take the time to read their content and listen and learn over time.

Listen:

• Conversations with Nova Reid
• Dane Baptiste Questions Everything
• The Black History Buff
• In Good Company by Otegha Uwagba
• About Race with Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Growing Up With gal-dem
• In Search Of Black History with Bonnie Greer (audiobook)

Reading:

• Women, Race and Class, Angela Y. Davis
• A Black Women’s History of the United States, Daina Ramey Berry, Kali Nicole Gross
• Why I’m No Longer Speaking To White People About Race, Reni Eddo-Lodge. Reni is asking that anyone who purchases or borrows her book right now to donate the purchase price to the Minnesota Freedom Fund and to also buy the book from your local bookstore and support them during the pandemic!
• Spend some time on the Black Lives Matter site, it’s filled with resources
• A list of resources compiled by a friend

Watch:

• 12 Years A Slave
• 13th
• When They See Us
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• Becoming
• Red Table Talks
• Jane Elliot
• Rachel Cargle, Revolution Now
• A visual representation of white privilege

Take action:

• Donate 
• Sign petitions – Breonna Taylor, #WeCantBreathe, Justice for George Floyd, google/search through Instagram, there are so many that need support
• Safely protest
• Or virtually protest
• Support social enterprise The Black Curriculum by emailing Gavin Williamson to get Black British history added to the UK Curriculum – get the template here
• Sign up to Rachel Cargle’s #DoTheWork 30 day FREE course. You can also support her work as an activist tangibly here.

Please share these resources and prompt conversations with your friends and family #BlackLivesMatter