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Black History Month 2002
Unchaining the Afro-British Mind
Growing more tenacious every year, advocates for racial and social justice are exposing one of the nation's best-kept secrets: the fact that Afro-Britons have a history. Without these efforts generations of people of African Caribbean heritage will be unaware of their origins. Thus, they will be defenceless in a nation that draws its pride from the conquest, colonising and "civilising" of indigenous peoples around the world. And, the consequences are pernicious. Bernie Grant MP put it quite succinctly when speaking to his supporters in the inaugural Black History Month 1987, launched as part of the African Jubilee Year and Marcus Garvey centenary: "Ignorance of Black history and heritage breeds low self-esteem". "This state of mind has taken its toll on the West Indian diaspora in Britain, asserts Professor Rex Nettleford, vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies. As a result, "The diasporic brethren and sistren are left without the icons of hope they need to survive spiritually in a hostile environment," says Nettleford, the leading intellectual on the poetics and politics of Caribbean cultural identity. Furthermore, this defencelessness taints the way we look at our parents and grandparents who are after all "the foundation of our triumph as Black people", said Claudia Webbe, the mayor of London's cultural advisor, during Black History month 2001. So, what should be done to unchain the Afro-British mind? First of all must come the attainment of knowledge about the varied and exciting tale of successes and setbacks of Black people over an historic timespan. The evidence shows that mankind was born in Africa, some 2 million years ago. The earliest inhabitants established stable societies and vibrant cultures. Only recently in historical time, about 400 years ago, disaster struck from the West. African peoples were enslaved and transported to labour on the plantations in the Caribbean and America. Many nations, including Britain were involved in the nefarious slave trade. In the high age of imperialism, Europeans discovered the wonders of Africa and its people (acknowledged as "the first among all men" by the ancient Greek historian Diodorus), but refused to credit African achievement. The explorers Captain Richard Burton in the 1860s and Leo Froebenius in the early 1900s expressed disbelief in African cultural genius and declared Africans to be a "childish race...with a total incapacity for improvement". (This did not stop Froebenius from looting seven terracotta sculptures from the Il Ife kingdom in Nigeria, however). Though grossly false, these prejudices and stereotypes became ingrained in European thought and world outlook. They are the bedrock of modern racist attitudes "that people of African descent are inherently and naturally inferior to white people". These prejudices were rampant in the 1950s when the first postwar contingents of colonials and free men and women came to work and settle in Britain. Hence, the impetus for Black History Month. The new migrants rallied to refute racist myths and to apply knowledge and action to the cause of racial and social justice. Black academics, writers and community educators have been prominent in setting the record straight. Dr Hakim Adi, lecturer in African and Black British History at Middlesex University, London, documents the Afro-British past in his book West Africans in Britain 1900-1960. Prof Harry Goulbourne, professor of sociology at South Bank University, London, charts the inequalities of the British empire and its narrow nationalism and colonialism based on colour in his book Race Relations in Britain since 1945. Susan Okokon celebrates the careers of scientists, leaders, activists, artists, writers, musicians and statesmen in Black Londoners 1880-1990. These disclosures have also strengthened efforts to honour the struggles and achievements of ordinary working class people. Ms Webbe says: "We need to pay homage to the underpaid hospital workers, the overworked nurses; the London Underground drivers; shift workers; the mostly women night cleaners; the bus drivers and conductors; the building and construction workers; the motorway builders; the plastic factory workers; the British Rail employees, conductors, drivers and platform staff." Educators echo the same themes. "Listen to the voices of Black elders," says Joan Anim-Addo, Head of the Caribbean Centre at Goldsmiths College, London. She has recorded the rich vein of insights available from early hard working immigrants. Her excellent books, Longest Journey: A History of Black Lewisham, and Voice, Memory, Ashes: Lest We Forget, have set a high standard in the field of oral history. The writer Z Nia Reynolds' book, When I came to England, is a poignant reminder of the elders' personal triumphs and struggles, regrets and hopes, and the dramatic events in public life affecting them. Their transition from "dark strangers" to an urban community without parallel in Europe is also identified in the collected life stories Changing Britannia: Life Experience With Britain edited by Roxy Harris and Sarah White of New Beacon Books. Honouring Black heritage is the theme of new initiatives in the Caribbean and America. The Caribbean Volunteers Experience (CVE), for example, plans a project in Nevis, used in the 17th century as a slave-trading depot for the Leeward Islands. Volunteers will search slave registers, marriage, baptism, burial records, and legal documents. They hope to describe family relationships and create profiles of African and island-born populations. From the evidence gained from several plantations, previously unknown ancestors will regain their place in history, say the organisers. Black heritage advocates are harnessing the power of the internet, as well. In the United States, Dr Camille Cosby, the educator and wife of comedic personality Bill Cosby, and Renee Poussaint, former journalist for ABC News, both known for their hard-hitting social documentaries, have launched a heritage web site www.visionaryproject.com. Their "legacy of excellence" features detailed interviews with notable Black personalities who made America and the world take notice. Among them are historian Dr. John Hope Franklin, women's leader Dr. Dorothy Height, photographer Gordon Parks, artistic personalities Carmen de Lavallade, Geoffrey Holder, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, and political leaders Senator Edward Brooke, Andrew Young, David Dinkins. Here in Britain, unlike the US, the power of the media and the internet is not influenced by or responsive to Black intellect and enterprise. Yet, it is now recognised by Black communities that the internet can be used to end dependence on outdated, and often prejudiced, learning resources. Parents can build their home video library around classic narratives on the African Caribbean and Black British experience. Teachers and community workers are becoming skilled at using the World Wide Web to inform children about Black history and help them understand contemporary issues affecting Black people. Controversially, after centuries of denial of the Black presence in Britain, two new official internet archives will soon reveal the hidden 400-year old African Caribbean ancestry of Black Britons, and millions of whites as well. New official archives will "cause quite a stir," says Anthony Adolph, director of genealogical research at Achievements, the leading genealogy and heraldry organisation. This is "because many families don't know that they have been descended from black people - their hidden ancestors," he said in an interview with The Chronicle. (Notably, for example, Queen Charlotte, consort of King GeorgeIII, had Black Moorish origins through her Portuguese ancestry.) The London Metropolitan Archive site, to be launched in 2003, will divulge contents of more than 1000 parish baptismal registers dating from 1655, the time Britain acquired the island of Jamaica. This means "Descendants of immigrants will be able to trawl through historical documents for every mention of every Black and Asian person in London over three centuries up to 1840," said Adolph. Additionally, the Public Record Office has unveiled plans for a web site of in-depth information for African, Asian, and Caribbean communities about their passage to England. These myriad heritage initiatives will no doubt prompt Afro-Britons to develop ties with dimly remembered ancestral homelands and diasporic Black communities as far flung as the USA and Canada. "Our interests are increasingly global interests," says Prof Nettleford in The West Indian Diaspora in Britain, an article in the prominent weekly Carib News, New York. Therefore, he says, "Institutions need to be established in the diaspora to deepen the connections". These should include "a West Indian Bank, a joint foreign policy lobby, and West Indian business houses". With such a focus, forging transnational links is a necessity, says Prof Nettleford. He suggests joint efforts to exchange teachers and twin schools in the West Indies and the UK, especially in areas of significant Black population. Promoting volunteer service schemes will enable Afro-Britons to work for development in world regions, he says. In a dramatic departure from current blinkered policies, Nettleford proposes that West Indian governments take a greater interest in the social affairs and problems of their compatriots abroad. Governments need a broad transnational view of West Indian nationhood; more like an extended family than the insular small island nation mentality inherited with Independence, he says. Diplomats based in London "need to be given more resources by their governments to cope with some of the really human problems that confront West Indian nationals in Britain, " says Nettleford. Reclaiming the arts and artefacts of the past is yet another key to freeing the Afro-British mind. Cultural activists see their mission as gaining command or control over "one's own cultural heritage". For example, "The return of Africa's stolen cultural objects is essential to the Afro-British community," says Sam Walker, director of the Black Cultural Archives. In his sights are the great cultural icons taken from Africa by anthropologists, explorers and colonists. Among them are Ghana's Asante Golden Stool, Nigeria's Benin bronze figures, Mali's masks and sculptures, and Ethiopia's statue, Lion of Judah. If their return to Africa is thwarted, "the art and artefacts held in Britain should be placed under the administration of Diasporan Africans in Britain," says Walker, a founder, with the late parliamentarian Bernie Grant, of the African Reparations Movement (ARM). The group's request for a formal apology and reparations from Britain for complicity in the slave trade was brought to the attention of delegates to the World Conference on Racism in Durban. Declarations of cultural defiance like these have triggered the rise of community-based heritage centres such as the Museum of Black Heritage in Brixton, London's well-known Black district. Preserving the Black collective memory has attracted academics, too. Media and cultural studies Prof Lola Young, along with Walker, has taken the once forbidden subject of Black Heritage into the sacrosanct halls of Middlesex University in the form of the Black Cultural Archives. So, what should thoughtful people infer from these myriad efforts? Across the nation, in the town halls and government centres, in homes, schools, universities, the media, advertising and arts organisations, it is time to renounce the mistaken idea that Blacks have no history. On the contrary, there is an authentic African, Caribbean, and increasingly an Afro-British, core to the Black experience in Britain which must be recognised. Knowledge of Black history, used intelligently, can unchain the Afro-British mind. Much is at stake; memories lost are not easily regained. It should be recognised that the past is fertile soil to nourish the seeds of initiatives planted today. Black History is needed because, like water, air, food and warmth, it is essential to the personal growth and collective survival of Black people in western society. In sum, Black History is triply beneficial. It nurtures greater knowledge, self-awareness and pride; and these are mighty weapons against ignorance and bigotry. It provides a means of clarifying the way forward for all peoples of African Caribbean heritage. And, in still racially and socially divided urban societies, the focus on Black History can be a rallying point for building friendships and alliances in pursuit of equality and justice for all.
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