Thursday, 6 February 2020

Reflections on the current state of British Black History - Part 3


BASA on the internet

BASA was set up in 1991 as the Association for the Study of African, Caribbean and Asian Culture and History in Britain. In 1997 the Association changed its name to Black & Asian Studies Association (BASA). It ceased to be a viable organisation and its last newsletter was published in 2012.

BASA remains visible in two ways. Its website remains on the internet. It contains downloadable files of its activities on education, museums and libraries and commemorations. It also has a section listing the newsletters – the last being July 2012. The last few are downloadable. There is also a list by Marika Sherwood of the contents of the newsletters up to 2007.


A Video of a seminar in December 2018 reviewing BASA can be seen at:


There is also the parallel continuing BASA Jiscmail group.

Signifiers for Optimism

(as mentioned at the Seminar and some additional ones added since, inc. some longer-term continuing initiatives)

(1)    The History Matters Conference which Hakim Adi and others had organised in 2015 had led to initiatives like the Young People’s Project.
(2)    the MRES – History of Africa and African Diaspora programme Hakim leading at the University of Chichester attracting mature students.
(3)    Young Historians Project
(4)    the work carried out for the OCR GCSE module on migration.
(5)    the number of people campaigning on the issues on social media
(6)    the continued networking that takes place.
(7)    The What’s Happening in British Black History (WHBBH) conferences held twice a year.
(8)    The use by pupils in some schools of oral history to record the reminiscence of their grandparents before their stories are lost.
(9)    ‘The Black Curriculum’ – young Black British graduates promoting Black British history in schools.
(10)  Fill In The Blanks (Advocacy Academy) – south London sixth formers who took direct action.
(11)  The award-winning Our Migration Story website - www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk – led by Claire Alexander, Professor of Sociology, at Manchester with an Advisory Board and contributors including Hakim, Marika, Martin, Miranda, Michael, and Ryan, Gemma Romain, Onyeka Nubia (Narrative Eye), Black Cultural Archives., Nick Draper (Legacies of British Slave-ownership) Margot Finn, and Madge Dresser ; it is rich in Black British history.
(12)  TIDE/Runnymede Beacon Fellowships in 2019 that worked with secondary history and English teachers who developed units of work on migration and empire which they then taught in their schools.
(13)  The TIDE/Runnymede report launch in Parliament which has the support of the MPs Helen Hayes and Dawn Butler.
(14)  Miranda Kaufmann’s workshops with secondary history teachers developing classroom work based on Black Tudors that teachers taught in their schools, shared in workshops at the Historical Association and Schools History project national conferences and wrote up in the HA’s Teaching History magazine.
(15)  The work done by Abdul Mahamud and Robin Whitburn writing the AQA Migration and Empire GCSE textbook and their Justice to History project – added by Martin since the seminar.
(16) Journey to Justice
(18)  The Black History Curriculum 2020 initiative:
(19)  Memorial 2007
(20)  Material about slavery, abolition and the black presence on the North East Labour History Society Popular Politics database which I edit at ppp.nelh.net.

Part 4 - is comments in response to the first three parts and additional information

http://historyandsocialaction.blogspot.com/2020/02/reflections-on-british-black-history.html 

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