London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Parents defend UK headmistress after she was forced to apologize for lesson on Black History Month, but won’t give their names

Parents defend UK headmistress after she was forced to apologize for lesson on Black History Month, but won’t give their names

Parents have stepped up to defend the head teacher of a Kent boarding school after her groveling apology for offending students by tracing the roots of the UK’s Black History Month to a 1926 US observance of ‘Negro History Week’.
Samantha Price, head teacher of Benenden girls’ school, “unreservedly” apologized for her use of the word “Negro” during the assembly, historically contextualized as it may have been, noting some pupils had complained the term was offensive and appeared to have confused it with a similar-sounding racial slur.

While several parents stepped up to back the headmistress, none who spoke to the Times of London on Monday were willing to give their names, suggesting they, too, might be afraid of backlash, whether against themselves or their children from others at the school.

Explaining she was trying to impart to the girls “how far language around black people has come” since 1926, when the US first set aside a week to commemorate black history, Price insisted it was “never my intention” to “have caused offense to some pupils” with the historically-accurate assembly address, framing her use of the offending word as an “error.”

“In hindsight, I recognize that it was not necessary to use the specific word,” she stated, though it’s not clear what she thinks she should have said instead.

While just a handful of parents were willing to speak up for Price to the Times, including one prominent surgeon of South Asian descent who called her a “wonderful headmistress” for trying to promote “education and debate,” none who were quoted were willing to give their real names.

This would suggest that the head teacher’s apology may have had less to do with a few pupils’ complaints and more to do with forces present outside the school environment.

“I believe her point was not only to explain the origins of Black History Month but also to demonstrate how language evolves and changes its meaning over time,” another parent told the outlet. This individual seemed relatively well-versed in the history of the observance, citing black historian Carter G Woodson’s decision to title it ‘Negro History Week’. Yet, the parent still wouldn’t go on the record with their name.

That parent blamed the students’ “rumor mill” for implying that Price had in fact said the “n-word” instead of its more innocuous cousin, which was still being used by some black people to describe themselves racially in the Civil Rights era of the 1960s.

Price had also questioned the continued relevance of Black History Month in 2020 during her speech to the pupils, given that “black history should be fully immersed in UK culture by now.” It’s not clear if any of the students (or their parents) took offense at this.

Student “outrage” over the mishandling of Black History Month has been heavily hyped in UK media this year as months of protests against racial inequality have roiled the US and trickled over to its political allies. “Dozens” of students at Nonsuch High School for Girls apparently staged a protest earlier this month, five months after a student allegedly “expressed racist views” during a Snapchat argument with another student in the aftermath of black Minneapolis man George Floyd’s death in police custody in May.

The school insisted it only learned of the conversation a week before the protest and has since disciplined the student.

In June, hundreds of former students at elite south London institution King’s College School Wimbledon reportedly signed a letter demanding the school “decolonize” its curriculum. A similar letter was also sent to Malvern College in Worcestershire, according to UK outlet iNews.

Meanwhile, numerous US colleges have been besieged by faculty demanding nothing short of a ‘woke’ return to segregation, with black faculty members to be given preferential hiring by committees of black administrators and subject only to review by members of their own race.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×