I was on the Black History Now! Durham University Online Panel discussion on 28 October discussing:
·
The
state of the field in Black British History
·
What is
going on in Black History in Durham and the North East?
·
Can
historians in Durham and the wider region continue to build the field?
·
And
what are the implications of recent developments in the field for the movement
to decolonise the curriculum?
These were my
opening remarks.
The state of the field in Black British History
State of British Black History
Back in January
2019 there was a new initiative started in London for a series of Black History
Seminars. Over 100 people attended. The mood was upbeat. I did a follow-up blog
posting suggesting that British Black History was in a good state. This has
been boosted by the Black Lives Matter movement’s reaction to the murder of
George Floyd in the United States,
The drowning of Colston
and by the symbolic
drowning of the Colston statue in Bristol. The amount of coverage of aspects of
British Black History on TV and in the press has noticeably increased. Numerous
essays and books have been published. Several Universities have appointed black
staff like Liam here to look at their histories with slavery, abolition and the
black contribution, and to decolonise the curriculum.
There is now much
more information and resources accessible on British Black History. It is
becoming integrated into the narrative of British history. There is of course opposition,
the most sinister being the Government’s declaration of cultural war. Even if it
can find ways to stop Universities and schools teaching the real history in the
curriculum, it will not be able to stop the continuing work of researchers, genealogists,
local history and community groups, walk leaders, the givers of talks, the specialist
history magazines and journals, TV programme makers and film directors,
organisations putting up plaques, musicians, composers, playwrights and fiction
writers, from adding to our knowledge and understanding. It will not be able to
stop museums and archives including relevant material in broader exhibitions on
aspects of British history.
John Archer and Govindia
Nor can it stop
initiatives by local authorities, like the John Archer statue and education
project proposed by Wandsworth’s Conservative Leader Ravi Govindia.
We are becoming overloaded
with new information including in books in which there is relevant material, but which are not obviously so from their
titles, like those of Sarah Hackett and Tom Vickers which include research in Newcastle.
What is going on in Black History in Durham and
the North East?
I first started
researching the Region’s Black history twenty years ago for a community
organisation in Houghton-le-Spring to find information to help counteract the
development of anti-refugee racism. The only serious work that had been done
was by the late Nigel Todd in his Black-on-Tyne essay in 1987 issue of the North
East Labour History Society’s journal.
Hidden Chains
Then in 2007 I was
contracted to work with volunteers on the Tyne & Wear Remembering Slavery
project to research and analyse the degree to which the North East was involved
in the slavery business. It turned out the more extensive than expected. We
also discovered that the contribution of the region’s abolition movement had
been undervalued, and found more information on the black presence. John
Charlton’s publication Hidden Chains
brought much of this material into public view, supported by him giving talks
to thousands of people. Further research was undertaken as part of the Labour
History Society’s North East Popular Politics project 2010-13 which I also
worked on.
Database
All the material
found by volunteers in both projects is publicly available on the North East
Popular Politics database which I edit.
North East History 2021
Two students have
won the Society’s Sid Chaplin prize for their essays, the most recent on Black lives on Tyneside 1939-1952 published in the 2021 issue of the Society’s
journal.
There have been
local exhibitions. 2017 saw the integration of black history in the Newcastle
Freedom City Festival. Brian Ward has worked on the Newcastle University award
of an honorary doctorate to Martin Luther King in 1967.
2021 Calendar
Last year I was a
member of a team led by Beverley Prevatt Goldstein who is on this Zoom which produced
the African Lives in Northern England
2021 calendar, followed this year by school resources and a pamphlet.
Can historians in Durham and the wider region continue
to build the field?
There is still an
enormous amount of research to be carried out in the archives and University
libraries. The 2007 and 2010-13 projects could not look at everything that had
been identified as possible sources. This has been particularly the case with
the material in the University’s Special Collections, and the checking of all
the parish records.
And what are the implications of recent
developments in the field for the movement to decolonise the curriculum?
Coleridge-Taylors
Following
my walks, archive sessions and talks in 2019 and 2020 I sent three papers to several
members of staff. One outlined a project
on the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor given the importance of Durham students
and staff have had since the 1930s in promoting and finding out more about him,
and the fact that his later relative from Sierra Leone George studied at this
University. The second is a project to research the records of Fourah Bay
College in Sierra Leone which was supervised by the University, and from where
many African students came to Britain. The third was titled Diversity, Slavery &
Abolition and the Black Presence. Thoughts on what next at Durham University.
Professor
Johnston
I would now add an enquiry into
the University’s Professor Johnston who is listed as attending the World
Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840. He had been appointed reader in Chemistry and Mineralogy when the University opened
in 1833. His 1851 book Notes on North America discusses slavery and
abolition and explains his active support for the abolition movement.
On 7 October the University Library posted on its website a joint article
by Professor Richard Huzzey and Henry Miller on colonial petitioning. Richard
has previously published on anti-slavery abolition. This reminds us that there
are academics in the same University in different departments who have
overlapping interests, and why it is so important that Universities encourage
the establishment of cross disciplinary networking.
Racism
in Universities
The way the
University thinks about decolonisation needs to be part of tackling a much
broader set of problems it faces relating to class and gender, misogyny and sexism.
Because most Durham students appear to come from other parts of the country, as
part of their induction should learn about the broad sweep of the history of
Durham as a University, a city, and a County, so that they appreciate the
communities that are they are temporarily living with. Embedded within that
will be the histories of the slavery business, abolition, the black
contribution and anti-racism.
Miners Song
We need to change
the way individuals think based on a better understanding of the real history
of Britain not the false one that has marginalised black and other ethnic
minorities communities, women, the working class, and the dark realities of
colonialism and imperialism.
Postscript
Later the same day
I gave an on-line talk for the Durham students History Society, the text of
which is being put on the North East Labour History Society’s Popular Politics
database.
