By Chris Dennemont, School Chaplain
The significance of Black History Month
It’s October and for many schools around the country, this means drawing their pupils’ attention to the importance of Black History Month. It’s an annual celebration that began nearly 40 years ago and acts as a focal point when pupils spend the month engaged in activities designed to celebrate, honour, reflect and respect the immense contributions, culture, and history of Black communities in Britain and globally.
Rising to the challenge
In school this week, we looked at the life of a hugely significant black American artist called Henry Tanner (1859-1937) who rose from a poor background in the United States to become a prolific and successful artist through the Impressionist era and beyond. The significance of his life was to show that a child of God could also be successful, breaking through the obstacles and prejudices of his time to become a highly successful and respected artist.
Henry Tanner was born in 1859, one of nine children born to a church minister and his wife. They lived in Pennsylvania and, from a young age, Tanner decided he wanted to become an artist. In 1879, he successfully applied for a place at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, becoming the only black student.
He was accepted but not welcomed by all, and some student artists there who were very unkind to him even physically attacked him. But he persevered and one of his first successful paintings was of the biblical slave, Androcles, who famously escaped from Roman custody only to be trapped in a cave with a wounded lion who he helped heal – removing a thorn from his paw.
When Androcles is then recaptured by the Romans and fed to the lions at the Coliseum, one of them is the very same lion he helped in the cave – who remembers the kindness of Androcles, and refuses to harm him. Thus, Androcles himself was saved from further harm. The point of this painting was to begin to subtly help encourage people to see the ills of slavery.
Other early paintings such as ‘The Banjo Lesson’ and ‘The Thankful Poor’ helped portray black people as decent, loving and family-oriented. These paintings stood in contrast to the paucity of black art at the time which tended to focus on minstrel shows and black people as objects of ridicule.
Success overseas
Despite the societal obstacles and setbacks he faced, Tanner continued to pursue his chosen career and eventually decided to travel to Rome. He made it as far as Paris in 1891 which he found to be a perfectly stimulating and inspiring city that was going through ‘la belle epoque’ with Impressionism at its height. Almost more importantly, he found that in Paris, the colour of his skin didn’t matter and there wasn’t the same prejudice that acted as a brake on his career in the United States. He was also well-received by Parisian society – he met some famous artists of his day, and he went on to marry and together they had a child. He began to exhibit in leading French art exhibitions and also returned to his homeland to exhibit his works. During World War One, he worked for the Red Cross Public Information Department and he painted military scenes. The French government then awarded him the Legion d’Honneur, a prestigious national badge of honour for his contribution to art. They also bought one of his paintings, ‘The Rise of Lazarus’.
Through his upbringing and his journey through life, Tanner was a man of faith. He once remarked: “Father, you preach from the pulpit. I preach with my brush”. He died in 1937, aged 78, and the point of remembering him in our school this week has been to provide proof that someone from an apparently humble background facing many societal obstacles – economic, political, and cultural – could overcome these and go on to be successful.
A long-lasting legacy
Nearly 90 years after his passing, the legacy of Tanner lives on. In our School Assembly, we watched a video from Eustace Xavier; Finance Director of Mitie Technical Services and board member of the Peabody Trust. He spoke about the power of his ‘village’ which encouraged him along his journey. He recently won STEM Senior Leader of the Year at the 2026 Black British Business Awards. The award recognised Eustace’s exceptional leadership and his contribution to one of the UK’s largest engineering and maintenance businesses.
A strong advocate for inclusion, social mobility and creating opportunities for people from all backgrounds to succeed, Eustace has kindly accepted our invitation to come to Thames Christian School to lead an assembly and question time with our pupils.
His story, and that of Tanner, reminds us all that with faith, determination and the encouragement of a loving community, it is possible to overcome societal prejudice and live a successful life.
