Black History Walks Newsletter 15.7.20

Black history is longer than a month...

Walks, Talks & Films on African history all year long

19 years of Education Through Film

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Above: After an outcry from the community featured in the last newsletter, the Young Historians Project and Professor Hakim Adi met with Hachette. Multi-national publishers Hachette have now agreed in principle to:

Thanks to those of you who took action, but the Young Historians Project now has another fight on their hands, see below for details.

Above: Illustrated talk with a selection of amazing true stories of free African/Caribbean sailors in the 1800-1900s. They crossed oceans, seas and rivers performing exciting acts of valour that have been left out of history. We will cover:

Black Sailors in Nelson's Navy

The Jamaican sea captain and his support for the Haitian revolution

The first Black sailor to win a Victoria Cross

The real pirates of the Caribbean

The Black male sailor who was really a woman

Black sailors on the Thames, Tower Hamlets, Deptford, Greenwich, Gravesend

Enslaved Africans who were not sailors but took over the ship and mashed up the slavemaster

Above: Exploration of how science fiction, fantasy, African history, carnival + travel all feature in the pioneering Animekon festival in the Caribbean.

Barbados is host to an annual science fiction/fantasy/gaming/pop culture and travel festival each August. Animekon attracts 5000 people over 4 days. It is the first and best such event in the Caribbean but no longer unique as similar events now take place in St Lucia and Trinidad.

This presentation will feature the event creators speaking on the history and future of this pioneering event. We will also mention some of the many links that can be found in the science fiction/fantasy world to the Black experience in the Caribbean and the link to African culture/ mythology and carnival .

Above: In 1919, after tens of thousands of African/Caribbean people had loyally fought for Britain in World War 1, they were viciously attacked by racist whites, denied jobs and told to 'go home'. However, in Liverpool, London and Cardiff the Black community fought back by any means necessary. The resistance was co-ordinated between Black soldiers and militant activists who lobbied, protested, fund-raised, punched, kicked and shot their way to self-determination. This presentation will cover:

Above: Haiti, New Orleans and the African Diaspora. Examples, recovery and healing Queen Nzingha lecture 80.

This presentation will highlight the psychological effects of generations of structural racism on African people in America, the Caribbean and beyond. Special focus will be on the collective effect of the global pandemic and police brutality. Professor Cirecie West-Olatunji will outline examples of resilience within a historical context that preceded and informed the current wave of social activism and resistance.

Above: Short video of History Matters conference on Black History run by Professor Hakim Adi in 2015. The event led to the establishment of the Young Historians Project which aims to encourage more African/Caribbean pupils to study history. Policy Exchange, a virtually all white thinktank, is now trying to use the name History Matters

Below is a joint statement by the coordinators of History Matters and the Young Historians Project

We “were alarmed to learn of the launching of a ‘project’ by Policy Exchange, in our name – History Matters [...] We demand that this group relinquishes its name.” This new project goes against what we work for. Read our statement and demand action: :



 

The  History Matters  initiative was formed in 2014 and included students, teachers and academics of African and Caribbean heritage, as well as organisations such as the Historical Association and Royal Africa Society. It highlighted the alarmingly low numbers of history students and teachers of African and Caribbean heritage in Britain and the fact that history is the third least popular subject amongst young Black undergraduates. History Matters called for action and convened the History Matters conference, held in April 2015 at the Institute of Historical Research, which brought together students, teachers, historians and many others.

As a result of the History Matters conference, the Young Historians Project (YHP) was formed in May 2015 to encourage more young people of African and Caribbean heritage to engage with history. YHP continues to grow from strength to strength with its central mission being to provide young people of African and Caribbean heritage with the experiences and skillset needed to become historians, to create knowledge of under-represented Black British histories and to share this knowledge with other young people. YHP ‘s approach is   ‘each one, teach one’.

We at History Matters and the Young Historians Project were alarmed to learn of the launching of a ‘project’ by Policy Exchange, in our name –  History Matters . This project, chaired by Trevor Phillips , whose recent appointment to a government enquiry into why African, Caribbean and Asian people were disproportionately affected by Covid-19 led to immediate demands for his removal, is allegedly designed to ‘document the re-writing of history as it happens, and explore modern Britain’s treatment of its past.’ In fact, it appears to be mainly concerned with widespread opposition to offensive statues and monuments, the renaming of buildings which commemorated individuals who engaged in slavery and human trafficking and the colonial conquest of Africa. 

 

This new ‘History Matters’ project suggests that ‘action is being taken widely and quickly in a way that does not reflect public opinion or growing concern over our treatment of the past.’ Phillips‘s claim that ‘history is being politicised, and sometimes distorted, in the current moment,’ makes it clear what his project finds objectionable. He and his friends do not appear concerned about the Eurocentric distortion and falsification of history which is so prevalent in our society.

 

We demand that this group relinquishes its name ‘History Matters’ , which is so closely associated with our organisational work to improve the understanding of and access to the History of African and Caribbean people in Britain, and with removing those impediments which have led to such low numbers of Black students and teachers of history.

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Coming soon !! Back for more interactive fun and history....