Background

In August 2020 North Lanarkshire Council unanimously endorsed a motion in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The motion also reaffirmed the stance that racism cannot be tolerated while acknowledging that many residents of North Lanarkshire suffer racism daily.

To drive the work needed to advance anti-racist work in North Lanarkshire the Council set up a Black Lives Matter Working Group. Co-chaired by Councillors Paul Kelly and Junaid Ashraf the group set about gathering information that would tell us:

• the history of our authority in relation to its links to the Transatlantic Slave Trade and colonialism and identify any statues, historical symbols, streets, buildings and schools that celebrated people with those links;
• how anti-racism teaching is delivered in our schools and how it is managed within the curriculum;
• the employment rates for Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic (BAME) people in the council area; and
• what community-based organisations operate in North Lanarkshire that represent the needs of BAME people and the financial support they receive from the council.

Once the above information was collected, the working group developed an action plan based on the findings. The group agreed that key to advancing race equality and relations was to engage with the people of North Lanarkshire on the work of the group and why Black Lives Matter.

The Black Lives Matter Community Conference was arranged to bring the work of the Black Lives Matter Working Group over the past 18 months to the attention of the people of North Lanarkshire and to enlist their support and involvement for the work as we move forward.  Specifically, it aimed to:

• engage with the diverse communities of North Lanarkshire on why Black Lives Matter;
• impart information and knowledge on North Lanarkshire’s historical links with the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its relevance today;
• promote the work of the council’s Black Lives Matter Working Group as set out in its action plan; and
• hear from local people what their priorities are in relation to race equality and relations.

The conference was hosted as an online event via Microsoft TEAMS and was hosted by the council’s Elected Member Equality Champion Councillor Heather Brannan-McVey.

There were a total of 131 people on the conference call.

As part of the post-conference evaluation participants were asked about their age, sex, ethnicity and religion or belief.

Of the 41 attendees who responded:

• 43% were male;
• 57% were female;
• 50% were aged 50-64;
• 21.5% were 40-49;
• 14% were aged 25-39; and
• 11% were Black African.