Letter: Black History Month success in Crawley

The climax of the Black History Month was a celebration event on stage at the Hawth Theatre. It was fantastic and just gets better and better every year.
By The Newsroom
Published 25th Oct 2014, 08:23 BST
Updated 8th Jun 2018, 06:23 BST
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I would like to say a huge thank you to all those who organised such an event, including the many other events during the month and thank you to all those who participated on Saturday. There certainly was a diversity. A great time was had by all.

Black History Month is an important time and opportunity to reflect and celebrate the culture of our Black Community in general but specifically in our wonderful town of Crawley.

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The town celebrates its diversity in many ways and is proud to host such fantastic events such as The Black History Month. The town also hosts the St George’s Day Cultural Parade, the Irish Festival, the Mela, the Folk Weekend, Crawley Festival and the Eastern Scream Mid-summer festivities.Forgive me if I have missed anyone out.

It just shows what a diverse and multi cultural community we have in Crawley. We should be proud of this.

I would just like to say though that in a town of 110,000 and growing, it saddens me that there are not more of our black and ethnic citizens serving on the council or possibly within other areas of responsibility in the town. This is not a criticism just an observation. Stepping forward to be a local politician is not everyone’s cup of tea; however, for me it is a great honour to serve our communities (although I admit, I don’t always get it right!).

So far, amongst the 37 serving councillors for Crawley, we have only two councillors from the black and ethnic communities; Cllr Walker representing Maidenbower, an excellent councillor working hard for all the people in the town - and Cllr Sharma, a relatively new councillor for Southgate.

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Talking of Southgate, there was a by-election for Southgate and yet again a white ‘middle aged’ man was elected; nothing against such men - after all I am married to one and I wish the newly elected councillor for Southgate well (although it would have been good to have had a woman elected)

I have a dream of seeing more members of the black community stepping forward to take on the role of councillor and would like to encourage them to do so.

I wish the Black History Foundation well and look forward to seeing their amazing month of celebration next year.

Thank you Black History and thank you for giving Bob and me the opportunity to participate in the Gum Boot Dance.

Cllr Brenda Burgess,Crawley Borough Council (Con, Three Bridges

Related topics:Crawley Borough Council