Now you have explored how to embed being anti-racist in your organisation, here are some practical and creative ways to work with children, young people and families on this subject.

1. Engage with Black Lives Matter locally

Research in the United States shows that people attending Black Lives Matter demonstrations were predominantly under the age of 30. Newspapers in the UK have reported participants to be similarly young.

Could your museum reach out to local groups and explore areas where you might be able to work together? This could include offering space for meetings, creating joint events, or opening your facilities during demonstrations.

During the protests in America over the summer, theatres and other public spaces offered their lobbies for protestors to use, for example to use the bathrooms or charge their phones, under #OpenYourLobby.

Another option when workshops are possible again could be to host events to enable young people to make protest banners as some museums did last year for the climate emergency school strikes. The National Justice Museum runs regular creative workshops inspired by protest.

Some museums, including National Museums Liverpool, are documenting the young people involved in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in their area. The National Library of Scotland has changed its collecting policy in the light of the protests to address ‘silences’ in the collection and include more material by young people, women and ethnic minority communities among others. There is similar work going on at National Museum Wales.

2. Plan activities with children, young people and families in response to existing national events and initiatives

We acknowledge that in the long term, we do not want the heritage of communities from minority ethnic backgrounds to be pigeon-holed. We want it to be a part of ongoing museum programming. However, trying out ideas in response to an existing event or initiative can be a good way to begin. We have listed some ideas below that we intend to be starting points.

You could work with young people to research your collections to create content for events. Once you have successfully piloted and created content, you should be aiming to programme it across the whole year, so these stories are not consigned to a single day or month.

October – Black History Month

Many museums already run events for Black History Month in October. Can you collaborate with a local group of young people that is relevant to their interests? Below are some examples.

22 June – National Windrush Day

Several venues have marked the occasion with programming for families:

1 August – Emancipation Day

23 August – Slavery Remembrance Day

You could also work with a young people’s group to research your local area and see if there is a local story or event you could commemorate. In Birse in Scotland, students at Finzean School worked with the local community and historians to research the establishment of their school and its connection to the slave trade. They collaborated with Magic Torch Comics to tell some of the story.

Glasgow Museums have also joined together to create a website exploring connections to slavery in their collections. There is also work going on in Edinburgh exploring links to the slave trade, which you can see on the Historic Environment Scotland website.

3. Hold tours for children, young people and families

Think about how you can tell a more inclusive story about your collection in tours designed for children, young people and families.

The Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam has been involved in a thorough process of decolonising its collections since the early 2000s. This can be seen throughout the museum, particularly in the Afterlives of Slavery display which places personal stories of the enslaved and their descendants at the centre of the its interpretation.

Using a similar approach, it has created tours of its Suriname collections (page is in Dutch, so you will need a translation tool) in the museum stores for families and 6-13 year olds. Stories of objects can be activated during the tours to tell their stories and provide activities to do at home. The tours are immersive, active and interactive, and bring an inclusive approach to the story of this former Dutch colony.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has created two trails with objects chosen by their African Heritage Gallery Guides: Britain and the Caribbean Trail and Africans in Europe Trail. While these are not specifically designed for children, young people and families, they offer a new perspective on the collection.

4. Working with children and young people to reinterpret your site and your collections

Young people are the least likely group to see museums as being relevant to them, according to recently released data from DCMS about their funded museums in London. Only 12% of 16-24 year-olds agreed that these museums told stories that were relevant to them. The data also showed an appetite among young people for museums to address social injustice.

There are some great examples of organisations working alongside young people from ethnic minority backgrounds to tell new stories about their sites and collections. This will help your museum to tell stories that are relevant to all young people.

The Colonial Countryside project involves primary school children in the Midlands working alongside historians to reinterpret and write about the colonial history of ten National Trust properties. This helps to build a new generation of advocates for Black British History, addressing the current lack of Black and Colonial History in the school curriculum.  There is information about how to access project resources on the University of Leicester website.

The Beatfreeks Don’t Settle project works with young people from ethnic minority backgrounds from Birmingham and the Black Country. In 2019 they worked alongside artists, historians and the local community to retell the story of Soho House in Handsworth. This included developing a new tour and commissions for local artists. They also created Campfire events, which are safe spaces for young people to talk about personal culture, identity and representation.

At National Museum Wales, the Sub-Sahara Advisory Panel (SSAP) youth group is holding workshops to reinterpret three objects from the collection. You can read more about the organisation’s commitment on their website.

Our Shared Cultural Heritage is a project run by Manchester Museum, Glasgow Museums and the British Council that involves testing new ways of engaging young people from the South Asian diaspora and their peers with heritage.

5. Create digital content

National Museum Wales launched their new online magazine Cynfas with an edition dedicated to Black Lives Matter.

The People’s History Museum has created a show of photographs taken of Black Lives matter protests in Manchester in summer 2020.

During lockdown in 2020, Hackney Museum developed online resources for home learning with subjects including Windrush Day, African fabric prints and hair and hair styles from the perspective of people from African and Caribbean heritage.

 

For links to further reading and resources to support your work, please head back to the Introduction page.

 

Thank you for reading this resource.

 

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