Current Affairs

Freedom's children boost hopes of Black Londoners

Tear-driven memories. Life-affirming testaments. The scions of famed civil rights leaders and freedom fighters - Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, and Mahatma Gandhi - brought their message of triumph over adversity to an historic gathering of their "brothers and sisters" in London. And, the dramatic effect on the bruised psyche of Europe's largest Black community was unprecedented.

Zindzi Mandela

Praise and affection
Zindzi, the daughter of Nelson Mandela, told of her childhood years of separation. "I was only 18 months old when my father was unjustly jailed and a 29-year old mother with three children when he was freed". In the intervening years, "We suffered, as he did", said the woman known to many as a prominent cultural activist, businesswoman and Aids campaign organiser. "Poetry was my salvation," she confided. Author of "Black as I Am" when 13 years of age, at 20 Zindzi won a prestigious award for "books about children who exemplify selflessness and human dignity".

To rapturous applause and cries of "Amandla", the freedom salute, she praised the love and affection of her mother Winnie, Nelson Mandela's helpmate and fellow freedom fighter against apartheid. She said their cause was a forthright commitment "to topple apartheid, a hateful regime, and build a democratic, majority-ruled society".

Yolanda King

Power in the arts
Yolanda King's memory of her father illustrates the vulnerability of children caught up in great social crises. She was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in the tumultuous early days of the civil rights movement that helped end public segregation in the South.

Now, in tribute to her father, who like Nelson Mandela gained a Nobel peace prize, she is committed to using her talents to affect social and personal change. "Within the arts lies the power to impact on the hearts and minds of both the privileged and those who have too long been denied," said Ms King, a writer, actress and filmmaker.

Ms King's career has reflected this belief. She sponsors the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and assists her mother, Coretta Scott King, with the Center for Non-violent Social Change (the official national memorial to Dr King). Her productions include "Achieving the Dream", premiered during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

Attallah Shabazz

Liberty for Black People in US
Attallah Shabazz, the eldest child of Malcolm X, remembers how she "witnessed things no child should see". Best known to thousands as an inspirational speaker, she spoke of being with "her daddy" when he died for his principles in a hail of bullets. She praised the strength and fortitude of her mother, the late Dr. Betty Shabazz, and sisters.

Her eyes lit up as she told anecdotes that many knew but wished to hear again. Malcolm X, once reviled as the "angriest Black Man in America", had condemned America's lagging response to Black demands for justice and equality. He cried out: "Either total liberty for Black people still in chains or total destruction for white America".

Extreme, perhaps, yet Ms Shabazz says: "the man called Malcolm X strengthened the civil rights and freedom movements". At his death, thousands mourned him as "our shining prince". But, she will remember him in her memoir, "From Mine Eyes", as "El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, a humble convert to Islam, an emancipated man and humanitarian hero".

"Much of what my father believed is still relevant today," Ms Shabazz told her enraptured audience. Arms open wide, she warmly embraced her "brothers and sisters". Warning them of the "wounded minds", damaged by oppression, that still abound, she said: "They must be healed and the causes resolved - by all means necessary". The meeting hall thundered with hallelujahs as she invoked her father's well-known freedom cry.

Gamal Gorkeh

African scholarship
Gamal Gorkeh faced a different but no less tragic watershed in his life: he accompanied his father, first president of the Republic of Ghana, into exile in Guinea in 1966. Hailing Kwame Nkrumah as an eminent pan-African Socialist and world leader, Gamal bitterly denounced US and European governments who he said connived to depose his father from elected office.

Gamal's own struggle, now, like that of many people in the diaspora is to "commemorate and preserve our heritage", he told the audience. With David Du Bois, son of the late American sociologist and civil rights activist W E B Du Bois, he heads two monumental projects. They are the African Compendium of African life, history and culture and the Encyclopaedia Africana Project, both initiated by President Nkrumah and Dr Du Bois.

Working from his base in Cairo, Egypt, where he is international editor of the newspaper "Al-Ahram", Gamal shares his father's intellectual ideas and writings with academic institutions. Included are notable historically Black centres of higher learning: Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, his father's alma mater, Fisk University, Tennessee, and Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Tushar Gandi

India's independence
Communicating ideas across time and space is also the life work of the heir of the spiritual leader, Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" Gandhi. Soft-spoken Tushar Gandhi prefaced his talk with a video clip of Mahatma Gandhi. He followed with his own message to eager listeners. He told how he had gained a new "sense of self" from studying his great grandfather's resistance against racism, violence and colonialism. He pictured for the audience Mahatma Gandhi's journey from boyhood, through the first stirrings of non-violent protests in apartheid South Africa, to his early involvement in India's fight for independence.

Today, Tushar is an Internet expert and promotes Mahatma Gandhi's ideas of "social reform through non-violent action". He aims to provide the information needed to close the gap between the "Have Nothing" populations of India and those who "Have too Much".

Pressure for Afro-British icons
The five charismatic superstars were in London for a unique 15th anniversary October Black History Month celebration, attended by 500 Afro-Britons. They brought to life the histories of great African-American, African and Asian freedom fighters.

But they did more, to the surprise of observers. They triggered a desire in Black Londoners to celebrate their own history and icons.

Population figures support this stirring. Once called "dark strangers", Black London's African and Caribbean population has grown from small settlements in the 1950s to 11 per cent of the capital's 7.5 million people. (And, Blacks make up 1.2 million of the nation's 60 million people).

History has played its part in this yearning. Britain has gained enormously from their creative skills, labour, capital and resourcefulness. Furthermore, "London's landmarks, institutions and wealth are built on the back of colonial expansion and London's history is intertwined with Africa, the Caribbean and Asia," London's Mayor Ken Livingstone acknowledged in his opening address. (Livingstone, a compelling performer, is said to have greater empathy with Blacks than any white British politician.)

However, "As Black Londoner's our contribution are undervalued and we still have to struggle to uncover our own role models in history," said Lee Jasper, himself of Black origins, and the mayor's official confidante on race equality policy.

Afro-British "Living histories"
Own role models? Yes, but who are the heroic candidates whose "living histories" can be glimpsed through their scions? To find some answers, The Chronicle asked members of the audience that question as the meeting ended.

Marcus Garvey

The Jamaican-born Black Nationalist and Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was frequently mentioned. Garvey's exhortation "Rise Up, Ye Mighty Race" and his poetic image "Black Queen of Beauty, thou hast given color to the world" still resonates in Britain.

Black pathfinders in the social services and politics were mentioned, too. Harold Moody (1882-1947) founded the campaigning League of Coloured Peoples.

Two civil rights champions were among the most popular choices. Lord Learie Constantine (1902-1971) was a famous cricketer and West Indian nationalist. Lord David Pitt (1913-1994) was the first Black chairman of London's elected government, the Greater London Council, and the first Black president of the British Medical Association. In addition, the sons of the militant parliamentarian Bernie Grant (1944-2000) could add their voices to a "living history" event in the future.

Dadabhai Naoroji

Shapurji Saklatvala

Role models from among the earliest radical Indian politicians and members of the British parliament were also identified to The Chronicle. Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) was an elected Liberal Party member and founder of the Indian National Congress. The marxist Shapurji Saklatvala (1874-1936) was a Labour Party parliamentarian in the 1920's and a tireless campaigner for workers' rights and colonial freedom.

Together, these role models, drawn from diverse parts of the globe, have made significant contributions in Britain. Above all, they ensured that what many once believed were "enemy political institutions" became public arenas for expressing Black and Asian and working class concerns.

Bronze woman
Stories of iconic women should have their place in this array of personalities, urged the poet Cecile Nobrega. In the foyer, resting on her cane amidst a throng of well-wishers, the 83-year-old recited a passage of her praise-poem "Bronze Woman" to enthralled listeners.

"They have persevered, sacrificed, educated, reared and raised their children often single-handed, and brought into our community professional men and women of status second to known," said the venerable Ms Nobrega.

Echoing her words, a troubled mother of a teenager with little awareness of "our history" spoke out. She put the case again for honouring brave men and women of the past through the living histories of their descendants. "We must sponsor events like this with our own images and role models. We ought to bring our youth to events like this...and we must take our new history knowledge into local communities, clubs and churches".

Historical truth
Afterwards, settled with a coffee or a pint of beer and chips at a local hostelry, small groups mulled over the meaning of this challenge. Young people of colour need role models who reflect their own specific historical identities and situations. Affirming their historic icons gives strength to communities bedevilled by disadvantage and long-starved of positive images.

Moreover, this affirmation verifies an historical truth. For decades, perhaps centuries, Black Britain has been a crucial incubator of liberatory ideas and movements and is, as well, a proud inheritor of six continents' of freedom struggles.

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