All hail female heroes

It’s not often that we take time to think about how much women have achieved, and I was reminded just how dynamic we can be when I went to the first showing of Black Heroes in the Hall of Fame, back on our shores for the first time in twenty years at the Hackney Empire. Starting with Black Queens including Hatshepsut (first female Pharaoh), and Charlotte Sophia (Queen Victoria’s grandmother) right up to today’s working mums, and a reminder that we only recently got our third black woman in Parliament here in the UK (Dawn Butler joined Oona King and Diane Abbott in 2005).

With time to hail only some of history’s black greats we are taken on a whistle stop tour through the centuries covering Kings and Queens, freedom fighters, heroes sheroes and legends from the worlds of sports and entertainment. Taking only a short pause for breath for a heated debate between Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther king, and Nelson Mandela on some of today's issues including hurricane Katrina, black on black violence, and women's hair.

If you forgive the slight American bias, some of our more recent British achievers are obviously missing; it's a fun and inspiring musical feast that’s as educational as it’s uplifting. So until we do get that Hall of Fame don’t feel bad about taking the kids, your mum and your dad.