Kinship, race and conflict are among the most talked about subjects of our time. But they are layered with ignorance about the origins of Black Britons and their genetic links with Caucasians. To set the record straight we need a few facts. Africans have entered the English gene pool in two ways. One, by enslaved and free-born Blacks, an estimated 20, 000 by the 18th century. Another, by post war African Caribbean settlers and their Black British descendants numbering about a million people. At least that's what everyone thought.
But now scientists have found an added African source: that is genetic traces of Blacks in Roman Britain. As a result, historians and teachers must update their knowledge and teaching in multi-racial Britain.
The facts about Blacks in the English genetic heritage
Tests of Caucasian men in Yorkshire north England with the same surname provided the major breakthrough. The tests disclosed a type of Y chromosome previously found only in west Africa. Samples taken to solve the mystery showed "Our findings represent the first genetic evidence of Africans among 'indigenous' British", says Prof Mark Jobling of Leicester University in the European Journal of Human Genetics, January 2007.
Blond blue-eyed John Revis is living proof of this affinity. The retired accountant aged 75 was astonished to learn he is descended from African forebears, reports Mark Branagan in his article "Yorkshireman's African warrior heritage revealed", in the region's top daily the Yorkshire Post, 29 January 2007.
Jibes about being "touched with the tar brush" have ceased to bother him; we all live in a multi-racial society now, he told the Post. Two relatives share his descent, a son in Milton Keynes and a member of another branch of the family who emigrated to America, plus five other unnamed men. Repeated tests in other regions may reveal the extent of unsuspecting millions of "one-drop-black" Caucasians in the nation's 60m population.
"The Y chromosome is passed down from father to son, so this suggested some African ancestry somewhere down the line, Jobling reports in "Africans in Yorkshire? The Deepest-Rooting Clade Of The Y Phylogeny Within An English Genealogy".
We don't often get the chance to gauge the evolution of genetic histories such as this, says Prof Jobling. Families with their unusual Y chromosomes relate to African men in England sometime before the mid-18th century. This reveals the complexity of English ancestry, he says, and concludes: "this must have happened some time ago".
Media interest in Yorkshire-African link
This African influenced genetic journey did not fail to attract the attention of Steve Connor, science editor of the Independent. His article 24 January 2007 headlined the findings as "Yorkshire link with Africa revealed in genetic study". All the men in the research project did not know they had black ancestry until told they had a type of Y chromosome that could have only come from west Africa, he reported.
The study findings have deep significance says Chris Benfield of the Yorkshire Post. "Now it seems clear there was at least some interbreeding before the big migrations from the West Indies which began with the docking of the Empire Windrush in 1948," he reports in "Surname clue to Unknown Roots in Africa", 24 January 2007.
What scholars say about Roman Blacks
This historical affinity adds substance to known facts about Blacks in Roman Britain. They came to Yorkshire as Roman soldiers some 2000 years ago. One, the Romanised African, Emperor Septimius Severus, ruled the region, pacified the quarrelling indigenous British, and brought prosperity and freedom from the marauding Scots and Picts, Germans and Gauls over two decades before his death at York in AD211 at the age of 64. Historian Anthony Birley recounts the emperor's exploits and significance in his authoritative book Septimius Severus: the African emperor, 2nd edition (New Haven, Conn.: Yale, 1988).
The new national curriculum must be revised
Genetic and historic findings underscore the need for alternative narratives about Black Britain. Nowhere is this more apparent than in government initiatives for diversity and citizenship training in schools. Close examination of a recent report spearheaded by the Education Department secretary, Alan Johnson, and his advisor Sir Keith Onyema Ajegbo, demonstrates why this necessary. They urge headmasters "to start with slavery as a means of understanding the history of ethnic minority groups in the UK". This is a disturbing diversion from the facts. We know that the first Blacks in Britain were legionnaires of the most advanced civilisation of its time. To ignore this earliest stage in the Africanisation of English history is a serious omission.
The way forward
To redress this omission, teachers and students, especially in racially and culturally diverse schools, need access to information about genetic and historic African-British links. More broadly, educational psychologists must research the negative effects of lily-white curricula on the psyches of white as well as Black pupils. Teachers' attitudes and perceptions of Blacks in the classroom and textbooks must be revised. Extra resources will be required to introduce these proposals.
What is important, too, is that school administrators should act with skill and determination to bolster the lagging self esteem of rootless, beleaguered youth in identity crisis. And this means more than a casual feel good fix of carnivalesque African Caribbean music, song and dance displays in school assemblies.
The Africanisation of England should be part of mainstream teaching instead of being only a "minority interest". It will help all pupils understand both their unique identities and their shared genetic histories. Moreover, it will promote rational and evidence-based debate of contemporary issues of genetic and cultural diversity in the nation's classrooms, media and public affairs.
