Mary Seacole: nurse, businesswoman and Crimean War hero

October is a very special month in the year.

It is a time when the successes of people from the Black community are celebrated, but it’s disappointing that these successes can feel like they have been relegated to just one month. They should be embedded within the fabric of our country, and Black history should be discussed for 12 months of the year.

I was born and grew up in Britain and was never able to celebrate role models who looked like me. Everywhere I looked, the Black community always seemed to be portrayed in a negative way. When I went into nursing aged 18, in 1980, you only ever heard about Florence Nightingale and her heroic exploits during the Crimean War. But I had no idea until my late 20s that there was also someone who looked like me caring for those same soldiers in Crimea.

Mary Jane Seacole was born on 23 November 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica. No one ever talked about her work whilst I was growing up and, when I discovered that she shares the same birthday as me, I knew she was special!

Mary was a nurse and businesswoman who mastered the skills of folk medicine, including the use of hygiene and herbs, knowledge of which was passed down through generations of enslaved people working on sugar plantations. Mary then acquired her nursing skills at Blundell Hall in Kingston, which served as a convalescent home for injured servicemen.

Mary travelled to England with letters of recommendation from doctors, but her application to join the nursing staff was refused. She even applied directly to the Crimean Fund for financial support, but that was also refused.

It makes me wonder what Mary would make of our modern NHS workforce, 6.1 per cent of which is Black despite the fact that Black people make up only 3.4 per cent of the United Kingdom’s total working population.

Undaunted by the constant rejections, Mary funded her own trip to the Crimea and established the British Hotel with a relative of her husband. She cared for thousands of injured soldiers, and her legacy lives on following the erection of a statue outside St Thomas’ Hospital in 2016.

Mary inspires me because she never gave up, she had vision and passion. Her values and commitment to service reflect who I am. Being the first Black MP in Birmingham was not a goal that I set for myself, but as a parliamentarian I wake up every day feeling driven to do the best I can and stand up for the people I represent. This Black History Month, I would like to thank my ancestors for paving the way before me.

Paulette Hamilton is the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington

Althea McNish: artist and textile pioneer

“Everything I did, I saw it through a tropical eye".

Althea McNish, 2015.

The way in which the past is written up, and who it is written by, means that we are often not aware of historically significant Black individuals of national and international importance. They are not known beyond a small circle of inquisitive experts.

As we mark another Black History Month (and how I wish we didn’t still need to do this but, given how much there is still to learn and reveal, I’m glad we do) I’m struck by the continued absence of attention paid to pioneering Black women.

Bruce Castle Museum is a Tottenham gem. Sitting on the edge of a park, the museum demonstrates how to serve and engage with local communities by ensuring the richness of the area’s historic diversity is preserved for everyone. For years, the artist and designer Althea McNish lived less than a mile from the museum. McNish came to Britain from Trinidad in 1951, studying at the Central School of Art and Design, then at the Royal College of Art.

In 2019, the museum paid tribute to her achievements. But why weren’t there more people talking and writing about this woman? It is only more recently that McNish has become better known.

Since she died, there has been a major exhibition of her work at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, as well as essays in Vogue magazine and in the department store Liberty’s magazine for their customers. The Crafts Council, Goldsmiths University and The Guardian have also carried essays and tributes.

Like all good artists, she deployed her creative imagination in a variety of ways, stretching and challenging preconceived ideas. She designed and created a “bachelor girl’s room”, using the limited space to show off her eye for colour, sensing that young people in particular were looking for an escape from the drabness and sombre grey tones of post-war British design.

She also explored the concept of the paper dress, something which the fashion industry, in its quest for sustainable clothing, is still exploring today. Her fabric designs in particular projected the tropical heat and flamboyant abundance of colour in the flora and fauna of the Caribbean.

That Liberty took her work is testament to her creative authenticity and design integrity, especially as the store is often characterised as quintessentially English. It is no exaggeration to say that McNish’s work revolutionised fabric and interior design: it continues to be influential today.

Since McNish died in 2020, the artist Sonia Boyce RA has been working hard to ensure that the legacy of this extraordinary artist and designer is preserved. As a source of inspiration, who better to celebrate than someone who not only created beautiful, compelling, designs but also spoke eloquently about her experiences as a Black woman in the United Kingdom?

Baroness Young of Hornsey is a crossbench member of the House of Lords

Women Making History Today: Joan, Malory and Sharon

I would like to pay tribute to not one but three women who have paved the way for Black women in recent years across literature, healthcare, and the civil service and who are all still making history.

Having worked in the NHS myself for more than a decade, I would first like to mention Joan Saddler. She has held a series of leadership roles in the NHS and received an OBE for services to health and diversity in 2007. Joan continues her unflinching commitment to improving diversity and reducing inequalities as director of equality and partnerships in the NHS Confederation and co-chair of the BME Leadership Network. She has assiduously brought attention to the impacts of inequalities on both staff and patients within our health service, championing the benefits that diversity in leadership has on outcomes. Recently, she has produced important work, not just helping identify the worse Covid-19 outcomes among ethnic minority communities but also proposing concrete steps to tackle this issue. At a time when government has sought to shut down conversations around inequalities, many would do well to listen to Joan.

Malorie Blackman needs almost no introduction. Millions of children and young adults have grown up with her novels for more than 30 years, which have done so much to increase the visibility of Black characters in literature – which is sadly still lacking. Most notably, she wrote the thought-provoking Noughts & Crosses series, recently made into a BBC TV series. These books provide important insights on racism and injustice for all ages. Yet the nine books in the series are just a small fraction of her incredible output. She should be considered in the top tier of British writers.

The path to Black representation in Parliament is often retold, but neglected are the stories of those who trod similar, difficult paths through the civil service. Formidable economist Dame Sharon White did break down so many barriers, becoming the first Black and second only female permanent secretary at the traditionally male, pale and stale Treasury. Thanks to Sharon and others charting the way, the civil service has become dramatically more representative. Now she has gone on to chair the John Lewis Partnership and is helping the company stay relevant, in a difficult economic climate, while retaining its distinctive ethical commitments.

I’m sure we have not seen the last of what Sharon, alongside Joan and Malorie, have to offer.

Kate Osamor is the Labour MP for Edmonton

Claudia Jones: journalist and political activist

It is said that Africans have the most forgiving heart. I think this saying is born out of the necessity to survive, forgive, move forward and leave a legacy. So the woman I have chosen to celebrate is Claudia Jones, because her legacy has transcended generations and is a coming together of hearts and minds to bring joy out of injustice.

The Trinidadian-born journalist and political activist Claudia Jones is rightly celebrated as one of the central founders of the Notting Hill Carnival, which is now said to be the second-largest annual carnival in the world. She was raised in New York City, before coming to London in the 1950s.

In 1958, from a small office at 250 Brixton Road, she launched Britain’s first Black newspaper — the West Indian Gazette — which campaigned for an end to colonialism, a united West Indies and the fair treatment of Britain’s Black communities.

Later that year, in response to a series of racist attacks in Notting Hill, she organised a carnival which took place in January 1959 at St Pancras Town Hall. It was sponsored by the West Indian gazette under the slogan: “A People’s art is the genesis of their freedom.”

It continues to celebrate the beauty of West Indian culture and heritage to this day — and is one of the dates I look out for in my diary every year.

This template inspired the founders of the Notting Hill Carnival, which first took over the streets of West London in 1964, the same year Jones died from a heart condition and tuberculosis brought on by a lung condition dating back to her time spent in an American jail. The civil rights leader, actor and singer Paul Robeson read the eulogy at her funeral and she is buried in Highgate Cemetery, next to Karl Marx.

It is often true that Black women are at the front of campaigns — especially those advocating for truth and justice. Some people refer to the trope of the “strong Black woman”: well, I say it is not by choice that a Black Woman has to be strong.

Dawn Butler is the Labour MP for Brent Central