Make a Black history timeline

You’ll need

Big pieces of paper
Coloured pens or pencils
Sticky tack
Craft materials (for example, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, stickers)

Black British history: events and people

PDF – 146.9KB

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Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.

Planning and setting up this activity

Decide whether you’ll include all of the timeline events. Write the dates of the events you’re including on pieces of paper and stick them on the wall of your meeting place. If you’re meeting outside, get creative – you could ask people to hold the sheets of paper up or pop them on the floor and weigh them down with pebbles.
Print (or write out) the ‘Black British history: events and people’ sheets. You’ll need at least the title of each event, but a bit of information is helpful too. It’s up to you whether you include it all or pick out some key points – it’ll probably depend on your group.

Running this activity

Make the timeline

Explain that black people have lived in Britain for hundreds of years. There’s a lot of black British history. This activity focuses on things that happened in Britain from 1948 to today.
Everyone should get into small groups. Each group should choose one person to represent them near the timeline. If you have lots of space, everyone could play at once.
The person leading the activity should stand in front of the timeline, so they can add the events.
Someone from each team should line up in front of the person leading the game.
Read out the title of an event and explain what happened.
Each team should work together to direct their representative to stand in line with where they think the event belongs on the timeline.
Once everyone’s finished moving, reveal the answer and stick the event on the timeline.
Everyone should keep playing until they have all of the events in the right order. Did anything surprise anyone?
You could add some context to the timeline by explaining when other events happened, such as HM Queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926, landline phones were common in the 1930s, HM The King was born in 1948, televisions and fridges became common in the 1950s and the first mobile phone appeared in the 1970s.

Add to the timeline

Explain that all of the events on the timeline involved real people.
Everyone should choose a black person who made a difference to culture or British history. We’ve included some suggestions but if people want to choose someone else, that’s OK too. There may be people who are important to your local area.
Now, let people find out more about the person they chose, such as in books or printed resources. We’ve included some information to get you started – people could also research online or use books like Little Leaders: bold women in black history or Young, Gifted and Black: meet 52 black heroes from past and present.
Everyone should decide how they’ll tell other people about their person. They may want to draw a picture of the person (or some of their achievements), write a poem or make a poster with some key facts.
Next, people should take it in turns to share the person they chose and what they found out. What did they achieve? Why were they important in history of culture?
Once everyone’s told others about their person, they should put them on the timeline. People could choose the date they were born or the date they did something significant.

Reflection

This activity was all about being a citizen. Should all of the people who live in a country be equal? Can anyone think of an example of black people not having equal rights in Britain? Whose responsibility was it to change it? People may think about how it often takes more than one person to make a change. As local and national citizens, people have a responsibility to stand up for what’s right. How could people work together to make sure Britain becomes a fairer place for everyone?

This activity was also about respecting others. Why is it important to learn about black British history? People might think about how, even though it’s part of British history, it hasn’t always been spoken about. Learning about history can help people understand why things are the way they are today. Can anyone remember any black people who made a big difference to culture? People could think about Claudia Jones starting Carnival, Skepta and his music, or athletes like Mo Farah. What about to history? People could think about civil rights activists like Paul Stephenson or Darcus Howe or politicians like Diane Abbott. Why is it important that people learn about them?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Active games: The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.
Online safety: Supervise young people when they’re online and give them advice about staying safe. Take a look at our online safety or bullying guidance. The NSPCC offers more advice and guidance, too. If you want to know more about specific social networks and games, Childnet has information and safety tips for apps. You can also report anything that’s worried you online to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command. As always, if you’ve got concerns about a young person’s welfare, including their online experiences, follow the Yellow Card to make a report.