CHRIST NOT ANOTHER THREAD (promise it will be a nice one by the end...) I had to go into my work building today for the first time since March 20th. The moment that broke my heart a bit was that because my teaching partner and I are trying an 'interleaving' thing ... (1)

(teaching chunks of texts, little and often, rather than all in one go) we had to literally tick off the days in order to keep track of who was doing what and so the earnest purple ticks stopped in mid-March. It looked so forlorn. Anyway I was pretty anxious this morning & so (2)

forgot to do my usual 'good morning' tweet. When I realised I felt sad as it has been my way of curating a mini-gallery of inspirational people of colour. A small contribution to visibililty and representation which I hope doesn't make me too 'Mick Hucknall'. Many in my (3)

gallery have been people I already knew about, but some early mornings have been spent trawling amazing sites on black history to learn about someone new and (sometimes) choose an image to suit / counteract the news story of the day. So as I forgot this morning, I wanted to (4)

at least name the people I've shared so far:
Cyril Regis (footballer), Claudia Jones (politician), Akala (writer & rapper) Lola Young (actor & now chancellor of Nottm Uni), Nile Rodgers (musician), David McAlmont (singer), Brian Lara (cricketer) (5)

Richard Pryor (comedian), Toni Cade Bambara (writer), Fanny Lou Hamer (politician), Des Walker (footballer), James Baldwin (writer).

Reading / watching / thinking about these people has been a bit of daily inspiration throughout lockdown. But there are so many more to add. (6)

If you'd like to reply to this thread with your own heroes / inspirations or people you've discovered, I'd be delighted to add them to my 'good morning' gallery.

A tiny thing to make this time bearable. As James Baldwin said 'It is the past that makes the present coherent'.(7)