Books 2

Women into Technology and Science , University of Huddersfield. Students on the university's one-year foundation course express themselves through multi-media and information technologies. See The Chronicle article Info-City Black Britain . System requirements PC 486 or better, 4MB RAM, 20MB hard disk space, Windows 3.1 or Windows 95.

Contact: Sylvia Gibbs Division of Management, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, England HD1 3DH e-mail: s.gibbs@hud.ac.uk Telephone 01484 472132

All you need to know about the Internet . Your essential guide. An introduction to developing your skills and understanding. See The Chronicle article Info-City Black Britain.

Contact: Peter MacLellan, City NetGates Ltd. 51 Broad Street, Bristol BS1 2EJ. Tel: 0117 907-4000; fax: 0117-927-7556. Web site www.netgates.co.uk e-mail: peter@netgates.co.uk

Okokon, Susan (1998), Black Londoners 1880-1990. Selected illustrations celebrate the careers of famous, and not so well-known, members of the black population. Included are scientists, leaders, activists, artists, writers, musicians and statesmen who have left an indelible impression. Okokon chronicles the inspiring self-confidence and self-assertion of black families such as Dr. George Rice, the medical missionary to the poor of South London and his school-mistress daughter Lucinda, and Dr. Harold Moody founder of the League of Coloured Peoples, and his niece Cynthia. And there is a very important and rarely seen African emphasis. Okokon, a researcher and lecturer in social policy, reminds readers earlier generations of Black people: the African kings and queens, and their emissaries, and the leaders of church missions and evangelical movements. There is George Makippe, a Wesleyan church leader, who was born a slave, converted to christianity by David Livingstone, and worked as a gardener in London, and the Rt Rev John Mugabi Sentamu, now Bishop of Stepney, who ministers to the poor, the imprisoned and ethnic minorities. Arts, entertainment and sports personalities include Orlando Martins who was the foremost Nigerian actor in Britain, Uzo Egonu, artist, printmaker and art historian, and Tunde Jegede, composer and master of classical African and Western music. Eminent physicians include the Igbo doctor, Surgeon Major J. B. Africanus Horton. Okokon reminds readers of traders and entrepreneurs such as Madam Ewa Henshaw from Old Calabar, Nigeria, Jack Bubuela, inventor of Nubian Jak, one of the top ten new board games of 1995, and Chris Shokoya-Eleshin, the building contractor. In international politics she mentions Eleazar Emeka Anyaoku, secretary-general to the Commonwealth. The publisher is Sutton Publishing Ltd., Phoenix Mill. Stroud, Gloucester.

McMillan, Michael (1997), The Black Boy Pub & Other Stories: The Black Experience in High Wycombe. This is a chronicle of "a first generation British born black man in England's inner city". His parents' home, St. Vincent, was a "mythical place thousands of miles away". Stuart Hall's foreword speaks of the "colourisation of the English" in introducing this montage of voices and images from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, one of the smaller black communities in Britain. Traces of the black presence go back to 1762. Probably in connection with black people brought to serve on the estates of the local aristocracy. Hence, the Black Boy Inn, later demolished in the 1930s. Black entertainers, musicians and dancers have spent some time in High Wycombe. Caribbean workers from St Vincent. Carpenters and joiners from the Caribbean were attracted to the town's furniture industries. During the war the town was frequented by black airman at the Royal Air Force Flight Command and African American GIs stationed at the US Eighth Army Bomber Command. When the Windrush voyagers came many went to High Wycombe "cause dey didn't have jobs in London". Brief periods of civic prosperity did little to relieve the dire economic position of High Wycombe's African Caribbean population. The contrast between white wealth and black poverty is startling, says the author. In the late 1980s The Independent newspaper noted that High Wycombe was among the wealthiest towns in England but "the ethnic minorities and particularly the West Indians, still constitute the largest number of unemployed and take the lowest paid jobs" They are housed on the poorer council estates. The wards in which they live "have the highest concentration of local authority housing, lowest incomes, highest deprivation and poorest provision of services and facilities", McMillan reports. Now, he says, "we declare, that we want our share...of the cake, that our parents, helped you bake". Published by Wycombe District Council.

Hines, Vince (1998), How Black People Overcame Fifty Years of Repression in Britain 1945-1995. (Volume One: 1945-1975). With this volume Dr. Hines offers his view of the black struggle for social justice in Britain. It is in many ways the story of his own life and other postwar migrants to Britain. His career path included five years in the RAF, a stint in the civil service, a journalism course and work for national newspapers and BBC radio. Then he found his true metier: organising and leading community development organisations. Now, one of Britain's senior community leaders, Hines documents events and personalities during a crucial period of history. He speaks to the ordinary man and woman in the streets as well as to the high and mighty. Topics covered include black youth, social movements, police and community relations, the Notting Hill Carnival, and the birth of the black media in Britain. Important, half-forgotten conference resolutions are discussed. Published by Zulu Publications, London; e-mail cmass@ubol.com Internet: http://www.ubol.com

The Windrush Legacy: Memories of Britain's post-war Caribbean Immigrants. Written and produced by The Black Cultural Archives in association with Lambeth Council. This is a reprint of the classic "Forty Years On" booklet by Lambeth Council, with additional memoirs from Renee Webb, a black activist. In the introduction, Prof. Stuart Hall puts the lie to the so-called "colour blindness" of the Windrush era. There was "racial and ethnic prejudice in high places...As the sons and daughters of the Empire Windrush quickly discovered". Times were hard. The first port of call for some was the air-raid shelter on Clapham Common. They later went on to establish homes in Brixton, now an important black London district. Getting housing for rent or for sale was difficult, recalls Sam King who became one of the most prominent members of South London's black community. "Because we couldn't get mortgages we pooled our money to help others. We called it "Partner" and it worked well," he says. Renee Webb began his experience with Britain as an RAF corporal. He later witnessed black confrontations with the racist Teddy-boys of Notting Hill, and joined the Universal Coloured Peoples Association and the Black Power Movement. Out on the streets of Notting Hill he supported the Mangrove 9 who were "Viciously attacked because we dared to demonstrate." Webb later worked as a Brixton Hill youth leader and defender of the homeless. He has served as chairman of the West Indian Ex-Servicemen's Association. George Kelly (Fowokan), who was soon to follow the early black pioneers to Britain, reflects: "Sitting on white-washed stones beneath duppycherry trees in the summer of 1948, I did not imagine that the seeds of Black culture was being sown in the soil of England's green and pleasant land. Were the new settlers aware that the ancient African gods had made the journey across the Atlantic with them and were taking root in the heart of this land?" Prof. Lola Young of Middlesex University concludes the volume praising the contributions of post-Windrush black arts activists. Sam Walker, director, says the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton seeks to "collect, document, preserve and disseminate the history of the black presence in Britain".

Jackson, Barbara and Lydia Eagle (1984), The Black Book of Beauty. MacMillan, London. Still the bible of basic styles for looking good and great. The authors say "Down through recorded history, and in legend, the "exotic" beauty of the black woman has long been celebrated, for we are the daughters of Cleopatra and the sisters of Sheba". In modern times "the uniqueness of women like Cleo Laine, Maya Angelou, Coretta King, Miriam Makeba...has been recognised." Though many more cosmetics and beauty aids have come and gone since the 1980s, this book was the forerunner of the self-confident, individual "black look" that we have come to associate with world-class models like Imran, Naomi Campbell, and Tyra Banks. The authors conclude that black women need not envy or copy anyone: "We are beautiful in our own right".

New World Imagery: Contemporary Jamaican Art (1995). National Touring Exhibitions, Hayward Gallery and Arts Council. Eight contemporary Jamaican artists present "a New World perceived and claimed by those who live and create there". Features David Boxer, Margaret Chen, Albert Chong, Leonard Daley, Ras Dizzy, Milton George, Anna Henriques, and Omari Ra. "Intuitive" painters such as Ras Dizzy and Leonard Daley enjoyed "rude boy" status in the 1960s and "Rastafarian dignity" in the 1970s. Art historian, Petrine Archer-Straw, who selected the works in collaboration with the National Gallery of Jamaica, writes of the Jamaican Caribbean experience, "constantly in the making, always in the choosing, rooted in the past but nevertheless forward-looking". With some relevance for the faith and fate of diasporic Caribbean migrants to Britain, she observes: "Ours is a brave new world born out of trauma. Being here (in Jamaica) is as much about geography as it is about people. Based on lava, it slips and slides, you shift to accommodate, make space. Stand firm, but not so rigid that you crack when the earth shakes".

Skellington, Richard (second edition 1996), "Race" in Britain Today. Sage Publication and The Open University. Much of what you already know is here. But an introductory chapter marshals the evidence for and against collecting statistics on ethnicity in a way that is refreshing. Skellington concludes that "The collection of ethnic data is not an end in itself but a means to an end: that of implementing equal opportunities and racial equality." And changes in policy and practice must follow, he says.

Johnson, Charles (1998), Dreamer. A novel of vibrant historical imagination set against the turbulence of the Civil Rights era. It explores the life of Martin Luther King Jr -- as a political visionary, human rights activist, preacher, scholar and martyr. Reviews have appeared in major US newspapers: the New York Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe. Johnson won the US National Book Award in 1990 for his novel Middle Passage. He is a widely published literary critic, philosopher and Professor of English at the University of Washington. Johnson is one of 12 African-American authors honoured in an international series of stamps celebrating great writers of the 20th century. By Canongate Books, Edinburgh.

Sociétés Africaines et Diaspora. No.4, Décembre 1996, revue universitaire et pluridisciplinaire. L'Harmattan. L'Immigration dans "tous" ses états: rapport colonial et immigration, réalitiés de la lutte des sans-papiers, citoyenneté et intégration des migrants, dynamiques associatives et developpement, et loi, clandestineté et trafics illicites.

Frachon, Claire et Marion Vargaftig (1993), Télévisions D'Europe et Immigration. Institut National de l'Audiovisuel et Association Dialogue entre les Cultures. Les textes d'analyse et les 14 dossiers documentaires rassemblés dans cet ouvrage constituent une première tentative d'état des lieux at de réflexion sur ce sujet.