BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons

Subject: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:11 AM

As an African American I know next to nothing about people of African descent in Great Britain's past. I also know next to nothing about Black people who currently live in Great Britain. And I don't it's only African Americans who know very little about Black Britons. I think other Americans (meaning people from the United States) lack information about this population and their culture/s.

It seems to me that such information could be helpful in discussions about various topics on this forum, including the discussions about the blackening up customs of some Morris Dance groups.

As a means of learning more about Black Britons, I've searched Mudcat archived threads to find what comments/information about this subject have already posted on this forum. In my opinion, having a central resource thread about this broad subject would be helpful to those interested in this subject (including me). Of course, this may be just the category/list making Virgo in me speaking once again.

The purpose of this thread is to provide a listing of and hyperlinks to Mudcat threads on Black Britons. In addition, the purpose of this thread is to provide links to some other Internet resources about that population. This thread will also include excerpts from those postings and Internet articles, reader comments, forum postings etc.

It's my hope that this thread will not just provide information/links, but also elicit insightful, interesting, and respectful discussion on this topic.

Thanks in advance for your participation on this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:19 AM

Using Mudcat's internal search engine, I found only one discussion thread on the subject of Black Britons:

Black Britons & Folk Music?

I started that thread in December 2004, a few months after I joined Mudcat. There were a number of posts to that thread. The last posting-to date-was on 14 Apr 05 - 02:21 PM.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Rasener
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:37 AM

I am White English, but I do remember my dad explaining what happened after World War 2.
If I remember rightly, he explained that due to the war, there was a massive shortage of labour for mainly meanial jobs in the UK. Consequently, Jamaicans, Wests Indians etc not living in the UK, (but I think think part of the then British Empire) were invited to take up those jobs. Consequently we had a flood of Black people coming to this country. That was very eveident, where I lived in Birmingham as a lad. They settled in principle very well into the community and indeed I played cricket with a lot of the children of those families that came here. I even went to their parties, which were great fun. However, they always thought that I was from the police and the same with my white cricket mates LOL
So 60 years on, they have certainly become an intergral part of the Midlands.

Unfortunately, I am unable to find anything to substantiate the above as my father is no longer alive.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:39 AM

Here are three posts or excerpts of posts from Black Britons & Folk Music? about the possible influence early on that Black Britons may have had on British folk music:

Subject: RE: Black Britons & Folk Music?
From: McGrath of Harlow - PM
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 01:25 PM

Here's an article I linked to on that other thread Azizi mentioned - The First Black Britons*

It's not true that there weren't a fair number of black people in Britain during the slave trade days - but there wasn't any plantation system, or a separated-off culture over the generations. With the end of slavery, descendants of black slaves and freed slaves mingled into the rest of the population. The number of people in England with some black ancestors is probably very high.

Some of the major ports have a different history, in that there have always been a fair number of black sailors over the generations, and as has been noted, the shanty-singing tradition reflects that.

-snip-
* It appears that that link is no longer working, but here is a similar article [if not the same article] that McGrath of Harlow also mentioned in that thread:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/docs/london_chronicle.htm


"This report in the London Chronicle indicates some sense of a common identity among Black people in London in the 1760s. According to the report, 'No less than fifty-seven Blacks or Negro servants…, men and women…entertained themselves with dancing and music consisting of violins, French horns and other instruments…till four in the morning.' The claim that Whites were excluded is particularly interesting.

British Library, Burney 5276b, London Chronicle, 16-18 February 1764
By permission of The British Library"


**


Subject: RE: Black Britons & Folk Music?
From: GUEST,greg stephens - PM
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 04:12 PM

I seriously think the black contribution to English fiddle music in the period 1650-1850 has been underrated. I really hope that in these more enlightened times(and with a bit more money available for research) that some serious research is done on the next few years, on diaries, playbills and other adverts, and we get a bit more of qa picture of what was actually going on in London and Bristol and Liverpool in that time. I think the results might be very interesting. English music changed a lot in that period, and I have a hunch that black people may have had quite a hand in it.

**

Subject: RE: Black Britons & Folk Music?
From: greg stephens - PM
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 05:56 AM

..."English musicians, like African musicians, are and have always been ingenious and quick to learn. Any African musical person arriving in England in 1700 would have figured out what to do with a fiddle in ten mintues, whether or not they came from north or sug-Saharan Africa. Likewise any English fiddler(or a substantial percentage of English fiddlersa), when coming across a black dancer doing the solo hornpipe spot in an English pub in 1720, or finding a group of black fiddlers giving it some in Liverpool in 1750...well, they are going to react just the same as me faced with Leadbelly in 1957, or the Stones with Muddy Waters, or anybody with Louis Armstrong or Jimi Hendrix. They would say "Give me a slice of that".
   
We really do not need a thriving plantation culture(as in America), or a millions strong sub-culture(as we have now), to explain black influence on indigenous English music in the 18th or 19th century. These things happen easily and quickly. And they will have happened in London, or Liverpool, or Bristol, or Whitehaven, to start with. Not in Little-Piddling-in-the-Mire!. London and Liverpool was where the blacks were, and where there was work in plenty for fiddlers and dancers. That's how, and where, cultural transfers happen.

The sea-change in English fiddle music from 1700 to 1800(and American music) was very much black influenced. That is what I am suggesting. And no, I cant prove it, Neither can anyone else. I would put it in the category of the Bleeding Obvious. I just hope some universities will direct a bit of research money in that direction, to reinforce some of the background information.

-snip-

[spacing changed to enhance reading]

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Rasener
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:41 AM

I have found a very interesting article, very much on the lines of what I was trying to say in my first post.

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=2392&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=10596

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:43 AM

There was a well-documented wave of immigration from the West Indies into Britain in 1948 on a ship called the Windrush and, as Les has said above, there was a need for workers to combat the labour shortage caused by the war.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:44 AM

Here's another post from that Black Britons and Folk Music thread:

Subject: RE: Black Britons & Folk Music?
From: GUEST,guest - PM
Date: 21 Dec 04 - 11:58 AM

Hiya all
Just a quick note, Black British stuff can be found on 'africlassical.com' checkout Samuel Coldridge Taylor. I would call that stuff Folk! not just classical... Also I am Black British! who listens to folk, Blues etc. but also who is able to enjoy all sorts of music.   I think that most Black musicians in the early/mid 20th c played to earn a living, but unlike in the states, there were too few opportunities to make any sort of living due to who owned the record companies and even if there was an attempt to self finance a record, the Black UK market was small and probably poor. Hence our looking towards America for our music (which we bought back in great numbers from our seafaring days)...

-Joe

-snip-

Here is the link to the website that Joe (Guest guest) mentioned:

http://chevalierdesaintgeorges.homestead.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:49 AM

Here is another post from that provides an excerpt from the same BBC article whose link appears to no longer work:

Subject: RE: Say what?-song lyrics defined
From: McGrath of Harlow - PM
Date: 10 May 06 - 06:40 PM

There were a fair number of black people around in England in the 18th century - slaves or servants or sailors. And then after the American War of Independence they were reinforced by exiled American veterans from the black regiments that fought against the rebellion, as a way of winning freedom from slavery.

The indications are that they mixed in with the general population, rather than maintaining a separate community. The chances are that by now a great many white English people have some black ancestors.

Interesting article here from the BBC Open University site - The First Black Britons.

One paragraph in that article to raise the spirit:

The black and white poor of this period were friends, not rivals. So much so, in fact, that Sir John Fielding, a magistrate, and brother of the novelist Henry Fielding, complained that when black domestic servants ran away and, as they often did, found ' ... the Mob on their side, it makes it not only difficult but dangerous to the Proprietor of these Slaves to recover the Possession of them, when once they are sported away'.

thread.cfm?threadid=91272#1737537

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:12 AM

There is a very useful book which I can't recommend too highly - edited by Paul Oliver Black Music in Britain, Open University Press, 1990 (and now sadly out of print).

There were black musicians in Britain in the late 18th/early 19th century, such as Billy Waters who was caricatured by Cruikshank and Pierce Egan in Life in London. The later minstrelsy craze included a few black performers. Black sailors contributed to the development of the shanty singing tradition. There were early black performers in jazz after World War One such as Gordon Stretton, and also a number of African singers who recorded in London before World War Two.

The impact of the Windrush and subsequent migrations on Britain and British music has been well documented, but there are a lot of other strands that still need to be researched. A recent exhibition in Liverpool noted the invisibility of the city's black community in the Beat era but their contribution was real and significant, even if it wasn't much noted. See this site for more information about Black Music on Merseyside.

Matthew Edwards

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:15 AM

Perhaps I should back up for a minute and clarify that in the context of this thread, by "Black Briton" I mean those people who have some Black African descent who either live in Britain or who used to live in Britain. [Yes, I know that you're not suppose to use a word in a definition for that word, but I don't think the term "sub-Saharan African nations" is applicable because their are people of Black African descent who live above the Sahara desert or within the Sahara desert].

In other words, I'm talking about those people who are descended from Black people who have lived in Great Britain for generations. And I am also talking about Black people who live in or used to live in Great Britain who are of Afro-Caribbean descent, Afro-South American descent, African American descent, Afro-Canadian descent, and [at least most of] the people who are from or are descended from Africa, including people of African descent of mixed race or of two biological Black parents who live in Great Britain and who may have other European countries (and may have done so for generations).

I'm aware that my definition for "Black Briton" may not include all of those people who are considered "Black" Great Britain, at least I got the impression that the referent "Black" (or "black") is used differently in Great Britain from this Mudcat thread.

Here is a post that I wrote trying to get clarification about that subject:

thread.cfm?threadid=101762#2058035

Subject: RE: BS: Does Being Dark Matter?
From: Azizi - PM
Date: 21 May 07 - 07:46 PM

And with regards to alanabit's story of "Betty" who had Sri Lankan origins saying ""Well done Alan. You really stuck up for us blacks.":

I found that story interesting on many levels. But, I'd like to focus on this one aspect of that story-

I don't think in the USA that people from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, and other places in the Far East use "blacks" as a group referent for themselves.

Apparently the referent "Black" in England and other parts of the UK includes person from Sri Lanka as well as Black Britons who were there prior to Black people from the Caribbean coming, Black people from the Caribbean, Africans, African Americans, Black Canadians, Black people from Latin/South American, Middle Easterners etc etc etc.

Am I right about that?

And is this the same way "Black" is used in Canada and in Australia?

When you think about it, it makes sense since some Sri Lankans, East Indians, Pakistanis, etc etc etc are much darker in skin color than African Americans. But I don't think that "black" is used that way in the USA.

Maybe I'm wrong.

??


-snip-

See that thread for the responses that some 'Catters gave to that question.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:23 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:25 AM

Here's a post from this Mudcat thread thread.cfm?threadid=93977#1814649 which provides an additional perspective about contemporary Black Britons:


Subject: RE: Black people at folk clubs
From: Grab - PM
Date: 20 Aug 06 - 06:41 PM


...In the UK, blacks and Asians *chose* to come over. And as immigrants do, they tended to congregate in cities, which was (and is) where the work is. There's precious few jobs available in rural areas for the people born there, never mind jobs going spare for immigrants, so there was never any reason for immigrants to move into those areas. They'd also tend to clump together like most immigrants, partly for community and partly because their lower incomes/savings/education forced them to live in the less pleasant areas of town. This is pretty much the story of any group of immigrants starting up in a new country, I guess - check the various Chinatowns, Greektowns or whatever.

Integration has meant this isn't as much the case as it was, and moving to where the jobs are means that well-educated black Britons are likely to live anywhere. But there are still inner-city areas of Britain which are 80-90% non-white (areas of London, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford) and areas which are almost exclusively white (mainly rural areas: Lincolnshire is less than 2% non-white, and Fylde, where I come from, isn't much higher)...

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:29 AM

This was supposed to fill the 'empty'post.


Joseph Antonio Emidy (1775(?) -1835)

Joseph Antonio Emidy was born in Guinea, West Africa. As a child he was sold into slavery and shipped to Brazil. Emidy was later taken to Portugal, where he received violin lessons. After three or four years of study there, Emidy gained a position as a second violinist at the Lisbon Opera (1794). Unfortunately, his skill as a violinist also led to the loss of his freedom: after a performance one evening, Emidy was kidnapped onto a British navy warship to serve as "ship's fiddler." He was released in Falmouth, Cornwall about four years later. Emidy remained in England, where he married and raised a family in the city of Truro, Cornwall. He is buried at Kelwyn Church, Cornwall.

Emidy was well known in Cornwall as a violinist, conductor, teacher, and organizer of orchestral societies. He is said tto have composed chamber works, concertos and symphonies, but none of his music survives.

Link to the Joseph Antonio Emidy home page:

http://www.emidy.com/

British Association for Local History: Event in 2007 honored Emidy and commemorated the bicentennial of the end of British involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.

http://www.balh.co.uk/lhn/article.php?file=lhn-vol1iss83-6.xml

Details of Emidy's life are found in the autobiography of politician James Silk Buckingham (London, 1855). Buckingham played flute and studied music with Emidy. Find this at JSTOR:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4666(198611)127%3A1726%3C619%3AJEAAIC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G

Here are some maps of Cornwall, England:

http://www.cornwall-calling.co.uk/mapof.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:33 AM

Thanks to all who have posted to this thread thus far.

And BTW, Tug the Cox, I agree with everything that you wrote. :o)

(I'm just kidding. You probably hit the submit button too soon. In any event, I look forward to reading what you'll post.
**

Most of the other references that I have found to Black Britons in Mudcat threads have been in threads about the blackening up custom used by some Morris Dance groups. Here is a link to one of those posts that I wrote:

thread.cfm?threadid=87981#1943526 Folklore: Padstow 'Darkie Days'

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:44 AM

Sorry Tug of Cox, "Impatience" is my middle name (well, not really, but maybe it should have been.

Here are the hyperlinks to the online resources that you shared in your post:

Link to the Joseph Antonio Emidy home page:
http://www.emidy.com/

British Association for Local History: Event in 2007 honored Emidy and commemorated the bicentennial of the end of British involvement in the Atlantic slave trade.

http://www.balh.co.uk/lhn/article.php?file=lhn-vol1iss83-6.xml

Details of Emidy's life are found in the autobiography of politician James Silk Buckingham (London, 1855). Buckingham played flute and studied music with Emidy. Find this at JSTOR: *

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4666(198611)127%3A1726%3C619%3AJEAAIC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G

Here are some maps of Cornwall, England:

http://www.cornwall-calling.co.uk/mapof.htm

-snip-


* Unfortunately, I'm not able to access full JSTOR articles.   However, Google took me to this website which may or may not be similar:

http://www.jazzbows.com/blackviolinlinks.html

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 11:05 AM

Tug The Cox, please forgive me for writing your name wrong.

**

FYI, the directions that I use for hyperlinking are:

1. Copy the link that is provided at the top of the page or (in the content of the post as was the case with your post), put the mouse over the web address that you provided and then right click to copy it (or click on "Copy" in the Edit feature at the top of the page)

2. Click on the "Create A Blue Clicky" [hyperlink] option that is found below this box

3. Follow the instructions that are found on the "Create a Blue Clicky" page that comes up. These instructions tell you to paste the web address that you copied (The "Paste" option can be found by right clicking on your mouse, or clicking on Edit, and then clicking on Paste)

After you do that, you can either give your link a title, and then hit "submit", or go straight to "submit".

4. After you hit "submit", copy the code that comes up.   

[Make sure that you copy the entire link including those symbols that look like greater than and less than indicators that are found at the beginning and end of the code. Your link won't work, if you fail to copy those beginning and ending symbols].

5. Post the link where you want it in your comment

**

If you follow those directions, you too can be a member of Mudcat's Blue Clicky Club. :o)

However, other members of that club and I are glad to create hyperlinks for other people.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 11:30 AM

I remember public information films, including the "Pearl and Dean" news at the cinema about the largely carribean immigrants (but some from the indian continent too) who came by invitation (indeed, almost plea) in the 60s. Those films are probably traceable via the BFI.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Rasener
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 11:41 AM

I remember the people from the Indian Continent hitting the Hansdworth Wood area of Birmingham. From my memory, many were exploited.
Handsworth Wood was a very wealthy area with large houses owned by white british. The people who did the exploiting, bought these houses and then rented the rooms to them. I think they just packed them in, and it was even on a shift basis. One group went to work in the morning, and the people who worked at night, took their beds, and so on. I am not sure what it is like now, but Handsworth Wood was involved in the race riots that went on in England some time ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: s&r
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 11:59 AM

I think the numbers of Black Britons prior to the second World War were smaller than you can visualize Azizi, particularly in some areas of the country. I had never seen in the flesh to the best of my memory any 'non-white' at all until I was in my mid teens. Films and newsreels provided me with all I knew of other races. This was in Nottingham, now a city with large numbers of all races.

Nottingham was not unusual: the case may have been different in ports where different nationalities and races mingled via the sea.

Even today the distribution of black and brown skinned races is patchy. Fylde my current home (as mentioned by Grab above) has a very small non white population: not so Bradford, Preston, Burnley, Liverpool etc.

The ten-yearly census has comparitively recently identified citizens by racial type/origin so accurate figures and comparisons are difficult to obtain.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 12:42 PM

When I came to live in Harlow back in the sixties it was very white - noticeably so to me, because I had grown up in Notting Hill, which had a sizeable number of newcomers from the West Indies by that time, alongside the Irish and Poles and Italians and so forth.

That's all changed now, and we're all colours.   But my impression is that most black people living here are first generation from Africa rather than the West Indies.

I suspect that might be a matter of newcomers being more likely to move out from the city than people who've been here a couple of generations and put down local roots.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 01:28 PM

The two black British folk musicians that most readily sprint to mind are Johnny Silvo and Cliff Hall. Cliff is sadly no longer with is but Johnny is still alive, well and even though he now lives in Norway may be happy to talk about his life in England. I am not sure how to get in touch with hime but I am sure an internet search may reveal some contact details.

I could ask my mate Ayo - A Nigerian living here - if you can contact him if you like. Let me know.

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 02:31 PM

Hello, Dave.

If your offer to contact Johnny Silvo or your friend Ayo was directed to me, that's great. However, I'm more interested in reading general information about the cultures of Black Britons than in actually contacting a particular Black British man or woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Paul Burke
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 02:54 PM

Here's a start. The 18th century lexicographer Samuel Johmnson left £70 a year (a good income) to his servant Francis Barber. Black servants were not uncommon in 18th century England, some having been brought here as slaves (though seldom straight from Africa), and reference to them is not uncommon in pub names (The Black Boy, the Black's Head etc.)

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 03:09 PM

...In the UK, blacks and Asians *chose* to come over. And as immigrants do, they tended to congregate in cities, which was (and is) where the work is. There's precious few jobs available in rural areas for the people born there, never mind jobs going spare for immigrants, so there was never any reason for immigrants to move into those areas.

Mining? I live in a mining village where we've had one black family (well, rather beige by now) for about 100 years. I'll ask sometime how they originally got here. Africa has had a domestic mining industry for centuries (its Iron Age started not long after Europe's), so there would have been men available who knew the work, if anybody thought to recruit them for British mines.

I doubt the existence of an invisible army of African-descended musicians influencing the British folk tradition. There would be more recorded anecdotes about them if there had been - for example, court records, given that fiddlers and pipers working proletarian festivities had a habit of getting arrested, and the background of anybody up on a charge was always written down. We know of a few celebrities; that doesn't mean there were vastly more.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 04:27 PM

We're all African descended, going back far enough.

And a great number of us have African ancestors more recently, even if it doesn't show - it only takes a couple of generations for the physical indications to vanish when newcomers pair off with locals, which seems to have been what generally tended to happen until recently. (Well, it still tends to happen as often as not today.)

Here's a page about Walter Tull, the first black professional footballer, and first black combat officer in the British army, son of a former slave from Barbados and a girl from Kent.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 04:46 PM

Here's an excerpt of a book review that I found by googling:

Black Britain: A Photographic History Launched At Rivington Place
By Ali Nobil Ahmad

Published: 02 November 2007

"Paul Gilroy is regarded by many as the undisputed (black) intellectual heavyweight champion of the world. And rightly so: there are few finer books on 'race' and the modern experience of blackness in Britain and the US than his 1993 classic, The Black Atlantic.

His latest offering - a photographic history of postwar black settlement in Britain, was launched this week with a series of talks and openings, including a special event at Rivington Place, the impressive newly built East London home of InIVA (the Institute of International Visual Arts) and Autograph ABP (Association of Black Photographers). Though published by Saqi, the book is closely associated with the activities of InIVA through its Chair, legendary academic and intellectual, Stuart Hall, who has written the preface...

The book has little to do with black (or any other) art as such, despite its glossy, coffee table format and its association with InIVA. It is a no-frills, descriptive documentary account of a story that is in many ways familiar, told with black and white press photos from the Getty Image archive (taken, in all likelihood, by white photographers, who remain anonymous).

ts real achievement lies in compiling a great many rare images of considerable interest to scholars, educators and general readers seeking to enrich their understanding of black history in the UK and London in particular, where most of its drama has unfolded.

Settlement is chronologically depicted, beginning with Pre-Windrush portraits of black soldiers and elite visitors from Africa, America and the Caribbean, followed by gritty scenes of life in the 1950s that capture the poverty and discrimination which set in once mass migration from the Caribbean gathered pace.

Themes of social unrest and conflict in Notting Hill and Brixton are tempered by a triumphant set of portraits including the capital's first black policeman and traffic wardens, along with the first black resident of Brixton.*

...By rushing through the 1990s to the present, the book underplays internal divisions and stratifications within Britain's many black communities that have taken root in the last two decades, burying its head in the sand to virtually all the pressing issues which face Black Britain today.

Puzzlingly, for a scholar of his political astuteness and expertise in internationalism, Gilroy thus leaves himself open to charges of marginalising the African presence in Britain, and underestimating the importance of the transatlantic world, both of which have expanded considerably during the latest phase of globalisation.

As a documentary picture book of early postwar black settlement, Black Britain is not, therefore, in all respects, a timely offering. Still, in drawing attention to unused raw visual material on Britain's black history, it more than fulfils its stated objectives."


http://www.culture24.org.uk/history/art51738

-snip-


*There is a photograph shown in the review of Leslie King, the first Jamaican immigrant to settle in Brixton, 1952. I assume this is who the reviewer meant when he wrote of "the first black resident of Brixton.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 04:59 PM

Here's an interesting lecture about black musicians in Britain over the last few centuries (and earlier) -
Bridgetower – black musicians and British culture 1807-2007 -

...as far back as 1505 we have an African drummer working for James IV in Edinburgh, arranging a dance with dancers in black and white costumes for the Shrove Tuesday festivities. Black musicians are repeatedly mentioned in pageants, fairs and at least one tournament from the 16th Century onwards...

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:00 PM

I confess that I've never heard of Paul Gilroy or the book Black Atlantic. To remedy this, I searched online and found this information which I'll share in case there are others here who also didn't recognize the man and the book or other books that he has written.

Here's some information from his Wikipedia page:

Paul Gilroy (born February 16, 1956) is a Professor at the London School of Economics.

Born in the East End of London to Guyanese and English parents (his mother was Beryl Gilroy). He was educated at University College School and obtained his bachelor's degree at Sussex University in 1978. He moved from there to Birmingham University where he completed his Ph.D. in 1986. Gilroy is a sociologically inclined scholar of Cultural Studies and Black Atlantic diasporic culture. He is the author of Ain't no Black in the Union Jack (1987), Small Acts (1993), The Black Atlantic (1993), Between Camps (2000) (also published as "Against Race" in the United States), and "After Empire" (2004) (published as Postcolonial Melancholia in the United States), among other works. Gilroy was also co-author of The Empire Strikes Back: race and racism in 1970s Britain (1982) a path-breaking, collectively-produced volume published under the imprint of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University where he was a doctoral student working with the Jamaican intellectual Stuart Hall. Other members of the group which produced that volume included Valerie Amos and Pratibha Parmar...

-snip-

Here's another excerpt from an article about the book Black Atlantic:

..."As a starting point, Paul Gilroy, a sociologist at Goldsmith's College in London, describes black identity in Europe and the New World as an ongoing process of travel and exchange across the Atlantic that tried to understand its position in relation to European modernity in his The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1992)...

More than simply understanding Black cultures from around the Atlantic basin as being marginal to or derived from dominant national cultures that result in specific subcultures like African-American or Anglo-African that have a closer relation to American or British culture-at-large than to each other, Gilroy argues that for a century and a half, black intellectuals have travelled and worked in a transnational frame that precludes anything but a superficial association with their country of origin. He argues, in other words, for a long, complex history of African-diasporic intellectual culture that is specifically transnational. Moreover, Gilroy shows how major figures from Frederick Douglass through W.E.B. DuBois to Richard Wright took up autonomous positions in relation to the great philosophers of modernity-- Hegel, Marx, & Nietzsche. Expanding on DuBois' crucial notion of "double consciousness," Gilroy argues for a modernity broad enough in scope not simply to include the marginal positions of slaves, but to put the "ungenteel" aspects of slavery and terror as crucial and systematic enough to understand them at the heart of modernity, itself: "A preoccupation with the striking doubleness that results from this unique position-- in an expanded West but not completely of it-- is a definitive characteristic of the intellectual history of the black atlantic" (58)."

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Gilroy.htm

-snip-

Well, it's clear that I have a lot more reading to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Rasener
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:02 PM

Here are a couple of well known Black Britons for a bit of light entertainment.

Frank Bruno & Lenny Henry - Romeo and Juliet

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:47 PM

Here's a link to what appears to be a portal for blogs about Black Britain [or maybe it's just one blog-I haven't figured it out yet]

http://en.wordpress.com/tag/black-britain/

Among the blogs linked to this portal [if that's what is is] is this one called "Charcoal Ink" in which the author writes about "The Situation of Black Britain".

http://charcoalink.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/the-situation-of-black-britain/ aulelia, 12/03/08

Here is an excerpt from that blog post:

"Discussing black people in relation to Britain is very very difficult and almost impossible. That is because Britain is not England, contrary to what many foreigners think. There is N.Ireland, Wales & Scotland to consider. Not to mention that everyone's experience of being black in the UK is wholly different.

As a person who sees herself as African, I have been going to school here since I was 11. A final year university student, my experience of being black in England has been one that is varied. London is a mecca for black people but Scotland is thin on the black population factor and this is bound to affect how people situate themselves here."...
-snip-

The author goes on to talk about her experiences of colorism* among Black Britons. However, most of the post is about Black men dating and marrying White women. The author uses the term "IR" as a referent for interracial dating/marriage.

That post has 10 reader comments-which appears to be larger than other blog posts I saw listed on the first page that I linked to.

Not surprisingly, these reader comments center around the subject of "IR". As an aside, does "IR" come from the word "interracial"? For what it's worth "IR" is not an abbreviation that I'm familiar with in the USA.

Here are some of those reader comments:

1. lifeisannoying Says:
23/05/2008 at 09:05
the answer is backin the 1990's norman tebbit told the west indian population that they had to assimulate to truely be british and look 50% IR , we have . Shame about that!

**

3. Dolores Says:
21/03/2008 at 15:30
Being a black British woman born and raise in the UK, I would like to add my voice to this debate. In the UK, the white population on the whole are not use to seeing black people as whole human beings because of racism and general lack of knowledge about black people's history and experience in this country. This is also true of a lot of black people as well. We are stereotyped in two ways: crime and family breakdown. There are no other images of us in TV and film in the UK. In response to the question of black men dating/marrying white women, the number of 50% is right. I live in London and I see more black men/white women relationships on the street than BM/BW. So this is very true! I think there is a issue of self-loathing in a lot of black men in the UK but it's rarely admitted. The black stereotypes that black women in America suffer from are the same in the UK. Black men are always complaining that BW are aggressive, hard to talk to, unattractive etc. There's no positive images of black women in the UK and a lot of black man follow the white beauty ideal push out to them by the mainstream media. Unfortunately no one in the black British community are looking at the ways white beauty standards are having effect on BM/BW relationships and most importantly black women themselves. I would like to see a movement occur in the UK where Black women views, issues are addressed and not sideline.

4. Orville Says:
15/03/2008 at 02:54
Aulelia I am so glad you're pointing out the issue of blackness for blacks in the occidental nation of the UK. I was thinking about the issue of IR. Aulelia, do you remember an article in Essence Magazine** a few years ago by a black British woman? The woman was educated, smart, young and pretty, and a white male co worker suggested she should go marry white. The black British woman refused. I think in the UK that some blacks are desperate to belong to fit in. But I wonder if non white people will ever "fit in" and completely assimilate in the UK? I am not straight so I don't know the whole issue about black heterosexual men desiring white women. I guess perhaps this has to deal with the entrenched image of whiteness being the symbol of beauty. Perhaps some black British men are into IR because they also want to fit in? One question Aulelia, really 50% of the black men in the UK are into IR? Wow that sounds like a dramatic number!


10. Melissa McEwan Says:
12/03/2008 at 23:53
Scotland is thin on the black population factor

That's a nice way of putting it!

My husband is Scottish, and, when we met, I was living in Chicago, in the most diverse neighborhood in the (famously segregated but getting better) city. I lived in a condo association of several six-flats, and the only other apartment in my building that was all-white was two gay men.

So when I visited Iain in Edinburgh for the first time, it was a total color shock. It was unnerving to me to be in a place so devoid of diversity. After about an hour of walking around, I said: "Don't you have any brown people in this country?!"

Later I met a black Scotsman in a pub, and we had a lovely and amusing chat about his lonely existence as "The Official Black Man of Scotland."

-snip-

* "Colorism" refers to Black people and other People of Color (PoC)having color preferences regarding other Black people or other PoC. Usually this is expressed as preferring lighter skinned PoC to darker skinned PoC. In the USA, an earlier term for "colorism" is [being] "color struck".

** Essence is a monthly magazine published in the USA which is directed toward African American women.

**

By the way, for the life of me I couldn't figure out the dates   23/05/2008, 21/03/2008, and 15/03/2008. But I finally got that the month is placed in the middle and not in the beginning of the date as it is in the USA and I think also in Canada. You Brits have such quaint customs!***

*** Written with much love :o)

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: s&r
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:49 PM

Day Month Year - ascending order...

love

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:58 PM

http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/list.html

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:09 PM

Azizi, have you read Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa by Ekow Eshun? He's one of the best social commentators/critics out there, and is currently the director of the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) in London. He's often on the BBC and other TV/radio programmes (I was just listening to him on Radio 4 a few hours ago) and if you Google him you'll get a million hits, which say everything better than I can.

Wikipedia and Amazon.co.uk (the British site) are good places to start, but he also has a blog on the ICA website, and Untold London has a video clip of him talking about his book. Anytime he has anything to say, I stop and listen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekow_Eshun

http://www.untoldlondon.org.uk/archives/TRA32287.html <

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Gold-Sun-Searching-England/dp/0141010967/ref=sr_1_

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:10 PM

"Records show that black men and women have lived in Britain in small numbers since at least the 12th century, but it was the empire that caused their numbers to swell exponentially in the 17th and 18th centuries."

Google

BBC - History - The First Black Britons

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:11 PM

Also, for what it's worth, it would be interesting to read any discussion on those blogs about Morris dancers and blacking up. But I haven't found such a discussion if one even exists.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:16 PM

It's pretty inevitable that over a few generations any minority is going to tend to blend in and cease to have a visible separate presence, unless there is some continuing process of segregation of sanctions against people pairing up with people from different origins. In the process the majority gets changed as well, of course.

Some people see that kind of thing as threatening. I can't see it that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 07:22 PM

...as far back as 1505 we have an African drummer working for James IV in Edinburgh, arranging a dance with dancers in black and white costumes for the Shrove Tuesday festivities.

The primary source for this: Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland. It isn't easy to figure out who James was employing, what they were doing for him or why, but it seems pretty clear that he had no trace of racial prejudice against anybody but the English, if that. I haven't yet read the most recent biography of him, which might make more sense of his wildly multicultural court.

From the Battle of Flodden onwards, the days when Scottish kings could afford to run a surrealist harlequinade of exotic foreigners were over. Probably the great majority of the immigrants of the years around 1500 were Gypsies, and after James IV's time they were steadily ground into oblivion.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:21 PM

Here's another website that I found which provides "A capsule history of Black Settlement in Britain's Capital"

http://www.chronicleworld.org/

The Shaping of Black London

AD 50 Roman London
Earliest Londoners come from all over Europe and Africa

Africans served in Roman army. "Negro head" carved wooden spoon found at Southwark bridge is earliest African connection in Southeast London.

16th century
Black trumpeter at court 1507; and "John Blanke" served Henry VII at Greenwich and later Henry VIII.

Catherine of Aragon lands at Deptford in 1501 with her African attendants.

1555 "Certain black slaves" arrive from Africa with John Lok; and marks beginning of continuous Black presence in London.

Late 16th century, opening up of West African trade. Africans became part of London's population in seafaring centres like Deptford.

1593 First record of black person, "Cornelius", in parish register 1593.

1596-1601 Fear of increased black population in London and other towns leads to Royal proclamation by Queen Elizabeth I to arrest and expel all "Negroes and blackamores" from her kingdom.

Mid-17th to late 18th century
First era of large scale settlement of blacks in Britain.

Spans period of Britain's involvement in the tri-continental slave trade.

Black slaves were in attendance as sea captains sauntered through the streets.

In Tottenham, All Hallows Church baptismal register records "John Cyras, Captain Madden's black" in March 1718, and at St Mary's Church, Hornsey "John Moore, a black from Captain Boulton's" 8th October 1725 and "Captain Lissles black from Highgate" in 1733.

etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:34 PM

Bonnie, no the book that you mentioned in your post-Black Gold of the Sun: Searching for Home in England and Africa by Ekow Eshun.

That book sounds interesting. Thanks for letting me know about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 10:36 PM

I meant to write "Bonnie no I've not read the book you mentioned..."

Sorry for my poor cut and past job.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: meself
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 12:48 AM

FWIW Dept. Paul Burke mentioned Samuel Johnson's "servant" Francis Barber - seems to me that Boswell (Johnson's young friend and biographer) at times refers to Barber as Johnson's "adopted son", although that "adoption" may well have been informal rather than legal. After Johnson's death, Barber married a woman from Johnson's home village, if I remember correctly. Reportedly, he took to the bottle, and drank away much of the legacy Johnson had left him.

I always found it interesting that in any contemporary references to Barber that I've come across, his race is mentioned only in an incidental way; it didn't seem to have "issues" attached to it ...

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Paul Burke
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 02:04 AM

Sir John Hawkins, Johnson's executor, certainly thought Barber's legacy was too great to leave to a Black person. As for the "adoption" or otherwise, it's certain that Johnson considered him far more than a servant; more I think a companion (NO sexual overtones); the legacy was less than would have been left to a son, and was placed in trusteeship despite the fact that Barber was almost 40 years old (IIRC). I think this reflected Johnson's fears of his inability to cope with sudden wealth- because he was a servant, not because he was Black.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 04:33 AM

I don't think I accept that concept of aspiration to a white standard of beauty. Two words, surely, suffice.

Naomi Campbell.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 06:51 AM

Here are online reviews of two books that I have read that provide some background to the subject of the how White people in antiquity related to Black people.

BLACKS IN ANTIQUITY
Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience
Frank M. Snowden, author [Harvard University Press]

"The Africans who came to ancient Greece and Italy participated in an important chapter of classical history. Although evidence indicated that the alien dark- and black-skinned people were of varied tribal and geographic origins, the Greeks and Romans classified many of them as Ethiopians. In an effort to determine the role of black people in ancient civilization, Mr. Snowden examines a broad span of Greco-Roman experience--from the Homeric era to the age of Justinian--focusing his attention on the Ethiopians as they were known to the Greeks and Romans. The author dispels unwarranted generalizations about the Ethiopians, contending that classical references to them were neither glorifications of a mysterious people nor caricatures of rare creatures.

Mr. Snowden has probed literary, epigraphical, papyrological, numismatic, and archaeological sources and has considered modern anthropological and sociological findings on pertinent racial and intercultural problems. He has drawn directly upon the widely scattered literary evidence of classical and early Christian writers and has synthesized extensive and diverse material. Along with invaluable reference notes, Mr. Snowden has included over 140 illustrations which depict the Negro as the Greeks and Romans conceived of him in mythology and religion and observed him in a number of occupations--as servant, diplomat, warrior, athlete, and performer, among others.

Presenting an exceptionally comprehensive historical description of the first major encounter of Europeans with dark and black Africans, Mr. Snowden found that the black man in a predominantly white society was neither romanticized nor scorned--that the Ethiopian in classical antiquity was considered by pagan and Christian without prejudice."

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SNOBLX.html

**

BEFORE COLOR PREJUDICE
The Ancient View of Blacks
Frank M. Snowden; [Harvard University Press]

"In this richly illustrated account of black-white contacts from the Pharaohs to the Caesars, Frank Snowden demonstrates that the ancients did not discriminate against blacks because of their color. For three thousand years Mediterranean whites intermittently came in contact with African blacks in commerce and war, and left a record of these encounters in art and in written documents. The blacks--most commonly known as Kushites, Ethiopians, or Nubians--were redoubtable warriors and commanded the respect of their white adversaries. The overall view of blacks was highly favorable. In science, philosophy, and religion color was not the basis of theories concerning inferior peoples. And early Christianity saw in the black man a dramatic symbol of its catholic mission.

This book sheds light on the reasons for the absence in antiquity of virulent color prejudice and for the difference in attitudes of whites toward blacks in ancient and modern societies."

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SNOBEF.html


-snip-


Frank. M. Snowden is a Professor of Classic, Howard University

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:06 AM

Here are Amazon Book reviews of those Frank M. Snowden books that I mentioned in my last post. I'm sharing these reviews as they provide more information on these books. I was going to type excerpts from those books on to this thread so people could get a sense of what these books are about. But it's much easier to copy and paste these reviews.

Blacks In Antiquity by Frank M. Snowden; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (January 7, 1971)

"Here's a book to raise the spirits of anyone of African descent who feels that he or she has nothing to do with the making of Western civilization. Frank M. Snowden Jr., a world-renowned scholar on ancient Greece and Rome who taught at Howard and Georgetown Universities, details with encyclopedic and painstaking scholarship and research the undeniable presence of Africans in the Greco-Roman world. "The experiences of those Africans who reached the alien shores of Greece and Italy constituted an important chapter in the history of classical antiquity," he writes. Using evidence from terra cotta figures, paintings, and classical sources like Herodotus and Pliny the Elder, Snowden proves, contrary to our modern assumptions, that Greco-Romans did not view Africans with racial contempt. Many Africans worked in the Roman Empire as musicians, artisans, scholars, and generals as well as slaves, and they were noted as much for their virtue as for their appearance of having a "burnt face" (from which came the Greek name Ethiopian).
-Eugene Holley Jr.

http://www.amazon.com/Blacks-Antiquity-Ethiopians-Greco-Roman-Experience/dp/0674076265/ref=pd_bxgy_


**

Amazon.com Review: Before Color Prejudice by Frank M, Snowden; Harvard University Press (March 1, 1991)

"Further developing the themes he so eloquently outlines in Blacks in Antiquity, Frank M. Snowden Jr. continues his investigations into attitudes towards Africans in the classical civilizations of Rome and Greece. Snowden identifies the African blacks from Egypt, Nubia (the modern Sudan), Ethiopia, and Carthage (Tunisia), discussing their interactions--including intermarriage--with the Greco-Romans. (He also notes that many of the artistic representations of these people resemble present-day African Americans.) From the trade missions of the Egyptian dynasties to their conquest of the Mediterranean and ultimate downfall at the hands of the Romans, Snowden unravels a complex history of cultural exchanges that went on for several millennia in which racial prejudice was not a factor. "There was a clear-cut respect among the Mediterranean peoples for Ethiopians and their way of life," he writes, "and above all, the ancients did not stereotype blacks as primitives defective in religion and culture."
-Eugene Holley Jr.

http://www.amazon.com/Before-Color-Prejudice-Ancient-Blacks/dp/0674063813

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:44 AM

Richard, with regards to your comment about Naomi Campbell, I appreciate the fact that you accept the fact that there are multiple standards of beauty, including a black standard of beauty typified by Black Briton Naomi Campbell.

However, it seems to me that the point that these Black Briton bloggers were making is that a number of Black Britons believe that is only one standard of physical beauty-the (or rather, a) White standard.

**

It just so happens that the charcoal.com blog that I referenced earlier has a post about Naomi Campbell. Here's that post:

What Happened To Naomi Cambell?
aulelia; 5/7/2007

"Naomi Campbell is one of those love/hate characters for me. Born in Streatham, South London, she shot to fame during her teenagers and the rest is public knowledge:the drugs, the tantrums and that infamous walk. I think that she is a public figure who could in fact have done so much yet just fizzled out. Here is a woman who could have done a lot for black people in Britain. Black people who live on this island are a minority and judging by the size of the United K, you can imagine that the community is not large. Having someone who symbolised the black female in Britain could have provided a boost for us living here — why didn't Naomi do that? There are hardly any famous and respected black females in Britain except for the MP Diane Abbott and June Sarpong, the TV presenter. Naomi made it on a global stage yet…the interest for black people in United K does not seem to be there.
She does not owe me or any other black person living in Britain anything yet I think with her iconic status of surviving the fashion industry, she could have tried to pave the way for more black models or at least just done something positive in the name of black people. Am I saying she should be the female version of Benjamin Zephaniah? No, not necesarily but giving back to the community is vital to make sure that it thrives and grows."

http://charcoalink.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/what-happened-to-naomi-campbell/


-snip-
There are 7 reader comments to this post. Two of the posts were about the blog itself. The other 5 posts were about Naomi Campbell. None of them were favorable. Here are two of those reader comments:

2. orvillelloyddouglas Says:
10/07/2007 at 05:09
I know this sounds harsh but maybe Naomi just doesn't care? I mean Tyra Banks seems like someone that's a bit more intelligent and has a bit more class. Naomi I think she has a persona in the media of being a bitch. Maybe Naomi is but she likes to play up the stereotype of the bitchy black woman. Maybe black British people should look for other role models? Naomi she just seems to be very self centered? I respect Naomi for breaking the colour barrier and I do think she's a very pretty and talented model. But Naomi doesn't get the bigger picture? Maybe one day she will she cannot model forever.

3. aulelia Says:
09/07/2007 at 12:16
@Byrd — thanks for the encouragement about the blog. i want to make it better and better. i love seeing your comments!

@Byrd and PlackandPround — Naomi just needs to get a grip. She needs to sort herself out. If I ever saw her, I do think I would tell her that I respect the work she has done but not who she is!

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:51 AM

In her post about Naomi Cambell,
aulelia mentioned Benjamin Zephaniah. Having never heard of Benjamin Zephaniah, I googled his name and found this information from his Wikipedia page:

"Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (born 15 April 1958, Birmingham, England) is a British Rastafarian writer and dub poet. He is a well-known figure in contemporary English literature, and was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008.[1]

Zephaniah has said that his mission is to fight the dead image of poetry in academia, and to "take [it] everywhere" to people who do not read books.

Zephaniah was born and raised in Handsworth district of Birmingham, [3] which he called the "Jamaican capital of Europe", the son of a Barbados postman and a nurse.[2][4] As a dyslexic, he attended an approved school but left aged 13 unable to read or write.[4]

He writes that his poetry emerged from the rhythms for Jamaica and "street politics". His first performance was in church when he was ten, and by the age of fifteen, his poetry was already known among Handsworth's Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities.[5] He received a criminal record with the police as a young man and served a prison sentence for burglary.[4][6] Tired of preaching only to black people about their own lives, he decided to expand his audience, and headed to London at the age of twenty-two.[2]

Rejection of OBE
In November 2003, Zephaniah wrote in The Guardian that he had turned down an OBE from the Queen because it reminded him of "how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised."[7]

Charitable work
He is an honorary patron of The Vegan Society,[8], Viva![9] (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals)the anti-racist organisation Newham Monitoring Project, and Tower Hamlets Summer University"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Zephaniah

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:36 AM

Why is this still below the line?

You might also want to check out Zephaniah's contribution to the Imagined Village project.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: Azizi
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:29 AM

Jack, when I read that, I immediately thought of this YouTube video-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIvFg5fXUM Tam Lyn (retold) that I had first learned about from another Mudcat thread and subsequently also viewed on the Folk Against Fascism MySpace page.

I looked up that video and sure enough that is one of the videos that Benjamin Zephaniah has done for the Imagined Village.

It's powerful if you like that kind of thing-and I definitely do.

Subject: RE: BS: Seeking Information About Black Britons
From: meself
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 05:47 PM

Just curious - I wonder what sort of thing that blogger thinks Naomi Campbell should have done to "pave the way for more black models"?   Or, what sort of "something positive" should she have done "in the name of black people"?

And, "giving back to the community" implies that the (Black) community gave to her - did it?