The following are responses to the three previous postings.
Martin Spafford
'Thank you so much for these, Sean. This is a
really important piece of mapping out so much past and present work: so glad
you’ve done this and I hope it goes far and wide.'
Additional
Information to Part 3:
Stephen Bourne for Mother Country, The
Motherland Calls and Black Poppies.
The Africans in Yorkshire Project: www.africansinyorkshireproject.com
Image of the Black in London Galleries. From objects and subjects of economic capital to
creators , developers and definers of cultural capital. The Image of the Black in London Galleries tours
highlights the black presence to be found in the national art collections in
London. https://imageoftheblackinlondongalleries.weebly.com
The John Blanke Project (Imagine
the black Tudor trumpeter)
Professor Charlie Foy (re. Black Mariners) https://uncoveringhiddenlives.com/about
Nelson Mundell (Glasgow University, Runaways
project)
Fiona Rocher (Dales Countryside Museum): www.dalescountrysidemuseum.org.uk
David and Roxanne Gleave (Historical Roots): http://historycalroots.com. David and
Roxanne are members of the Croydon Local Authors Group which I (Sean)
co-ordinate.
Hans Klootwijk (Caribbean Aircrew in the RAF in
WW2 website): www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com
There are also increasing references to British
Black history in the arts; e.g.
· Jazz
artist Soweto Kinch’s new album Black Peril focusing on the
‘race riots’ of 1919:
Gazebo
Arts’ upcoming March production of ‘Wanted’ featuring Olive Morris: www.queenshall.co.uk/events/wanted;
· ‘The
Gift’ at Stratford Theatre Royal, about Sarah Forbes Bonetta: www.stratfordeast.com/whats-on/all-shows/the-gift
Noor
Inayat Khan appearing as a character in Nazi-occupied Paris the current series
of Doctor Who: www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2020-01-09/doctor-whos-spyfall-noor-death-scene
· The 2014 film Belle, about
Dido Lindsay
Equiano
Bust At Houses Of Parliament
Monday
29 April. 5pm. Putting Africa First
Exhibition
Launch to mark the 25th anniversary
of the founding of the African Remembrance Day Committee by Onyekachi, Chidi
and Manassie Wambu and the 230th anniversary of the publication
of The Interesting Narrative of The Life
of Olaudah Equiano: or Gustavus Vassa, The African.
The African Remembrance Day Committee and the
Equiano Society, in association with the British Library. Hosted by David Lammy,
MP.
Upper Waiting Hall, House of Commons, to attend
Includes a reading from Equiano's Epigrams: The Interesting Narrative in Poetry' by author,
poet and writer John Agard, and selected
excerpts from The Interesting Narrative
of Olaudah Equiano: or Gustavus Vassa, The African read by the actor and
director, Burt Caesar.
Tribute will also be paid to the late Bernie Grant
MP, David Lammy's predecessor as Member of Parliament for Tottenham, whose
vital support of and encouragement to the African Remembrance Day Committee
must always be acknowledged in the narrative of the annual August 1st assembly.
There will also be a reception.
(Thanks to Audrey Dewjee, Ra Hendicks, Michael Ohajuru, and Martin Spafford for providing me with the information above.)
Audrey Dewjee
Audrey
notifies me about happenings in the North so that I can publicise them nationally. She
keeps in touch with people she meets at WHHBH Conversations and feel these
meetings are a valuable source of contacts. From time to time she exchanges
information with other researchers in Britain and abroad.
Her
comments on the blog are as follows:
I
agree a new equivalent of BASA needs to be set up and with it a new BASA
Newsletter, so that people can contribute articles and submit snippets of
useful information such as parish record entries, as they did previously.
To
me, the most important thing about BASA was its inclusivity. Contributions from academic historians,
independent historians, academics from fields other than history, county record
officers, family historians and many others were welcomed. BASA provided an opportunity for people to
network and share information which no longer exists. I think that we all owe a great debt of
gratitude to Marika Sherwood and her colleagues for their past work.
I
agree with Sean about the value of The
Legacies of British Slave-ownership project at University College London. The most amazing aspect of this project was
that academic historians reached out to non-academics for assistance. They treated those members of the public who
responded with respect, and credited their efforts. Directors of future University Black History
courses may find it productive to engage with the public in a similar manner. [In this connection, it is much to be
regretted that the Legacies of British
Slave-traders project proposed by Lancaster University was recently refused
funding.]
I
also agree with Sean that there is an important interface between
African-Americans/African Canadians and Britain. Many African-Americans came to Britain to
escape slavery and racism and I feel it would benefit research on them (on both
sides of the Atlantic) if more and stronger links could be built between
historians in North America and Britain.
Sean’s
comment that “While a lot of material was found in the archives and libraries
across the North East during the 2007 Tyneside Remembering Slavery and
Abolition project….it was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the
interconnections with colonisation of the slavery business, the presence of
people of African heritage, and the abolition movement,” resonates strongly with
me. The same applies to the work done in
2007 by the Dales Countryside Museum in North Yorkshire, for which I was lead researcher.
I
would like to query Sean’s assertion that Asian groups moved away from the
understanding that ‘Black’ was a political concept covering African, Caribbean
and Asian history and culture, so now most Black History Month programmes
lack any Asian culture and history component.
Did Asians actively “move away” or were they not encouraged to
remain? Either way, I would like to see British
Asian History included in any new BASA equivalent organisation.
I
would like to add “lack of funding” to Sean’s comments on the problems of
voluntary activity. So much more could
be achieved if more sources of funding were available for history projects.
At
the recent meeting, lot of the discussion seems to have focussed on the
teaching of Black History in schools and at universities. But older people should not be forgotten. They also need access to a more accurate
version of British History if intransigent attitudes to race and empire are to
be shifted.
Black History
in the North of England:
Many
exciting events happen in London – such as the recent first event in the IHR
Black British History Seminar Series (which I would have loved to attend). Unfortunately the cost of transport and
accommodation in London prohibits many of us in the North from taking part. However, we create events of our own which
are probably not known about in other parts of the country. Several important exhibitions were produced in
the last few years – for example Black
Salt: Britain’s Black Sailors (based on the book by Ray Costello) which was
on display at the Merseyside Maritime Museum from September 2017 to December
2018, and the African Stories in Hull and East Yorkshire exhibition Our Histories Revealed which opened in
Hull in 2017 and later toured to Beverley and Goole. More recently there was the War to Windrush exhibition in Bradford in
2018 and the highly successful Eulogy
exhibition put on by the Jamaica Society in Leeds Central Library in 2019.
There
are a number of very committed Black History researchers in the North who keep
in regular touch with each other, exchanging items of mutual interest. These include members of Diasporian Stories
Research Group (Allison Edwards, David Hamilton, Chris Power, Joe Williams and
myself), Gifty Burrows (African Stories in Hull and East Yorkshire project),
Bill Hern of Historical Roots, Ray Costello, and John Ellis (who researches 18th
and 19th century Black and Asian military musicians and soldiers and
Royal Navy sailors), to name but a few.
Joe Williams has recently won several accolades, including a Points of
Light award, for his Heritage Corner Black History Walk in Leeds. I believe a good deal of work on Black
History takes place in Scotland, but we rarely hear about it in England.
One
would expect WISE (the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and
Emancipation, Hull University) to be playing an important part in teaching
about British Black History, but it seems to be concerned only with modern
slavery at the moment. Despite the
importance of work on modern slavery and emancipation, surely WISE should also
be encouraging research into the experiences of past enslaved people,
especially those who settled in Britain
I
try to notify people about happenings in the North, in the hope that people
from other parts of the country may attend if they happen to be in the area. I keep intermittent contact with several other
researchers, both in Britain and abroad, to exchange information and this has
resulted in some very rewarding joint discoveries.
Co-operation
really works – so I look forward to the birth of a successor to BASA and its
newsletter, and the subsequent unearthing of much new British Black and Asian
History.'
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