Hi, my name is Sirad and as a black Young Consultant working with Participation People, Black History Month to me means being able to accept who you are as a black person and celebrating and acknowledging the appreciation that black people deserve.
In the past and in the present, black people have always brought ever so much to the table. They have shaped our country and who we are today. Moreover, black people have made some incredible contributions to society, including in the realms of music and culture.
Some significant people in the past from the black community that I still look up to are those who fought for liberty and freedom. For example, Nelson Mandela (the first President of South Africa and activist to bring the apartheid to an end), Rosa Parks, Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Maya Angelou, as they are some great people who have helped shape the way our world works today.
However, I also give my everlasting respect to the unacknowledged heroes, hidden from memory or accolades, who helped forge the world we live in such as Lewis Latimer. Thomas Edison was given the credit for inventing the light bulb, but it was the work of Lewis Latimer that made the light bulb work, improving the lives of people across the globe to this day. However, the only reason why he did not get the acknowledgment that he deserved was because he was a child of slavery.
As a black person, I feel proud to be who I am knowing the achievements that people of colour in the past and in the present have accomplished!
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