Ladi Bil has been educating fellow Hat High students about Black History Month. (Photo Courtesy Derek Brade)

By Chris Brown

Hat High student educating school about Black History Month

Feb 17, 2022 | 5:03 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The names Viola Desmond, Carrie Best and Sir Lincoln Alexander are better known among the students at Medicine Hat High School thanks to Ladi Bil.

The Grade 12 student took the reins of marking Black History Month at the school and those are three of the significant figures in Black history she highlighted.

“I’ve been making slideshows for every week and presenting with another Black student in each grade,” Bil says. “We also dressed up in our cultural attire on the first day and we also plan – I heard it became district-wide – a district-wide blackout on the 28th where we all wear black in solidarity of Black History Month.”

Bil says she was already in middle school when she learned February is Black History Month in Canada. She knew the month was marked in the U.S. but there’s not much in the Alberta curriculum about Black history.

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She says she doesn’t want people to grow up not knowing about Black history and it seems to resonate more coming from a fellow student.

“I feel like I represent the student body as a student myself and like I feel as if more people are listening and listening to me personally.”

Bil says she’s received a lot of support from the school and students. She expected a small group for a recent Google Meet/Zoom presentation but ended up with 16 classes and some staff members logged in.

She also had students she’d never met and teachers praise her for the job she’s doing teaching about Black history.

“Black history and Black contributions to history have very much shaped Canada’s heritage and history,” she says, adding she hopes future students learn about it much earlier than she did.