This presentation by the British rapper Akala to the Oxford Union in 2015 was an eye-opener for me. As a progressive I am more aware than most (like the rest of you in this group) about the denial of the contributions of black people in history, great African societies, the ghosting of an entire continent.

Akala lays out story after story, and as I listened, I was struck by something that made my "intellectual" understanding real like a gut-punch: I attended a solid public school system in California, and went to an excellent high school. I have undergraduate and graduates degrees from two of the world's very best universities, both in the US.

I was never taught any of this. "Black" history was slavery, with a little Frederick Douglas and for good measure a dollop of George Washington Carver. In other words, black was taught only in the context of its relationship to Amerika.

This is long, and I think worth a listen. With the benefit of being about as far from a droning, boring history lecturer as you can get. I hope you like it.