Black British Reader

Black British Reader is a blog dedicated to increasing access to knowledge of Black people in British society past and present. We aim to develop a collection of resources about the experiences of Black people in the Britain.

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Introducing CULTURE SHOCK™, a Black British history quiz card game.

This is something I’ve been working on over the last few months and I’m really excited to share it with you all. 

Culture Shock is a fun and educational quiz card game that inspires learning about the history of Black people in Britain spanning over a hundred years. 

With 52 question cards, you will learn about key figures in history, key dates and events. 

For ages 11+, teens, adults, parents, grandparents, friends - see what you can learn together!

Pocket-sized and easy to play.

Available to buy online: http://designrevolution.bigcartel.com 

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Boosting this ahead of UK Black History Month!

Available to buy on and Big Cartel http://designrevolution.bigcartel.com

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Since 2018, Culture Shock™ has made the rounds at events, youth groups, and living rooms, helping people test and expand what they know about Black British history in a genuinely fun way.

I’ve got some copies left, and with Black History Month here, I’d rather see them in use than sitting in storage. If you’ve wanted one for a games night, event, or just your shelf, now’s the time: https://designrevolution.bigcartel.com

Appreciate everyone who’s supported it over the years. This might be the final batch.

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It's my 9 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

Checking in!

What are you currently reading, discovering in Black British history?

And Happy Black History Month to all North American followers.

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Una Marson: Our Lost Caribbean Voice

The extraordinary story of Una Marson, a trailblazing poet, playwright and campaigner, and the first black producer and broadcaster at the BBC.

A Caribbean woman born in the early 1900s, Una defied the limits society placed on her. Joining the BBC’s Empire Service during World War II, she was the first broadcaster to give voice to Caribbean writers and intellectuals, bringing their stories and culture to a global audience accustomed to hearing only English accents.

During her time in London, Una wrote and produced a play for London’s West End, the first black writer to do so. She was also an activist, championing women’s rights, the rights of black people, literacy programmes and the education of children, and working with the deposed Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie.

Una’s writing, letters and her BBC personnel file are used to gain a unique insight into her life and work, while leading academics and her friends consider Una’s life as a black woman in a professional role in Britain at a time when that was highly unusual - and had significant personal costs attached.

Watch on BBC iPlayer

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A Man from the Sun (1956)

Groundbreaking docudrama from 1956 exploring the experiences of the then 75,000 West Indians who had newly settled in Britain, and the disparity they found between the mythical country and the real one.

Starring: Cy Grant, Errol John, Nadia Cattouse, Earl Cameron, Pearl Prescod, Pauline Henriques.

Watch on BBC iPlayer

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Betty Campbell: Statue for a Heroine

Cerys Matthews presents the story of Wales’s first black head teacher, Betty Campbell, and the new statue that will honour her lifetime of remarkable achievements.

After a public vote, Betty Campbell was chosen from a shortlist of incredible women from history to be immortalised as the first public statue of a named Welsh woman. Those who knew Betty well recall the life and work of this community icon from Cardiff’s Butetown and her journey from a tough childhood marked by tragedy and setbacks to the pioneering achievements that brought her plaudits from the likes of Nelson Mandela.

Told a working-class black girl could never achieve her ambitions, Betty proved her doubters wrong by battling racism to pursue her goal. After becoming Wales’s first black head teacher in 1973 on her home patch of Butetown, she made history, and ensured her pupils knew their history, by putting their multicultural heritage on the school curriculum. Her pioneering approach saw her create her own books and projects to teach her pupils about the positive contribution to British society by people of all races. She also helped create Black History Month.

Former pupils tell of how Betty Campbell's support was vital to their success. One, Louise Kelton, left Cardiff in her early twenties and rose to one of the highest positions in American law enforcement after being nominated by President Barack Obama to become a US marshall. Cerys discovers how Betty’s influence on Wales grew beyond the classroom with positions in public life and politics, and she finds out how Betty proved a passionate advocate for the people of Butetown as a councillor.

Filmed over three years, the programme follows the unfolding story of the groundbreaking statue that will keep her legacy alive, including the challenge faced by the world-renowned sculptor chosen to capture this heroine’s spirit. As unveiling day arrives and the statue for Betty Campbell is revealed to Wales and the world, what will her husband, children and those who knew her best think of it?

Watch on BBC iPlayer

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Bristol bus boycott organiser Roy Hackett dies aged 93

Tributes are paid to "humble freedom fighter" Mr Hackett, one of the Bristol Bus Boycott organisers.

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Linton Kwesi Johnson: “My Generation Changed Britain”

Ahead of his performance at the Serpentine Pavilion, Linton Kwesi Johnson talks about discovering Black literature, living through the colour bar in Britain, and why activism is more important than poetry

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Correcting Our Collecting is a short and accessible course in African heritage archiving. It is designed to introduce participants to the basic principles, skills and ideas required to approach the creation, preservation and activation of archives from an African heritage perspective. The course is necessary as the overwhelming majority of teaching and material concerning archival practice centre European perspectives on information studies. This is alienating for would-be Black archivists. It also ignores the vital contribution African-centred ways of knowing and being can make to archival science. The course is delivered over eight sessions combining presentations, practical tasks, placements and discussions. It is an entry-level course suitable for anyone of African heritage who is interested in learning more about what archives are, how they are created and managed, and what we should consider when working with archives within our own communities. Please do not sign up if you will not be able to commit to attending all eight of the course sessions. Course spaces are very limited and it is important that these spaces are allotted to those who are able to fully commit. The course commences on Wednesday 20th July 2022 and continues every Wednesday until the final session on Wednesday 7th September 2022. Time: 6:00 to 8:00 pm BST Course presentation : In Person delivery (please consider this if you do not live in or around London, UK) Address: Black Cultural Archives, 1 Windrush Square SW2 1EF London (next door to Brixton Library and the Ritzy Cinema) Contact: [email protected] Tutors: Dr. Etienne Joseph will lead this course with contributions from a number of guest heritage specialists. Course access: A limited number of bursaries are available to candidates who are successful in completing the enrolment form, are able to commit to all eight sessions, and who have a demonstrable interest in archives and/or community development. No previous qualification is required. Candidates not applying for bursaries will be required to pay a one-time fee of £150 to secure a place on the course.

Enrol here

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Photo credit: Liz Obi with Olive Morris ©Neil Kenlock, 1973

“Within the [Black Panther] Movement itself I was most inspired by Olive Morris. I’d never met anyone like her before and haven’t met anyone like her since. She was fearless, bold, and outspoken, and during the Movement days we became good friends.

The first time Olive made a real impression on me was during my early days in the Movement. It was on a demonstration of residents from the Ferndale Road flats. Beverley Bryan and Olive had been working with the tenants concerning housing conditions - there had been a lot of fires in the flats caused by the use of paraffin heaters and the tenants were demanding that the Council install some form of heating. A demonstration of about 30 tenants made up mainly of women and children, together with members of the Movement set off one weekday morning from the flats in Ferndale Road* to the Housing Office on Brixton Hill. It was the first demonstration I’d been on.

When we reached the Housing Office the tenants demanded to see the Head of Housing to discuss the issue and were told by the housing office staff that this would not be possible and we were to leave the premises or they would call the police. The tenants were unsure about what to do next until Olive spoke to the women and told them that yes we would leave the premises but that they should leave the children behind saying that if the Council would not meet wit them then the Council had better look after their children because it was not safe to take them back home. The women were naturally nervous about this course of action as they feared the Council would take their children into care but after further persuasion from Olive they agreed to do so and all the adults left the building leaving the children in care of the Housing Office staff. We were not outside the office for more than ten minutes before the head of the housing office agreed to come and meet with the demonstrators and the outcome was that the issue of heating provision would be looked into as a priority.

So yes Olive was definitely an inspiration.”

“The British Black Panthers and Black Power Movement: an oral history and photography project” Organised Youth, 2013

*Beverley Bryan mentions in her interview in the book that two students in her school who lived on Ferndale Court were burnt and killed in a fire. This led to a campaign with housing and Lambeth Council and Ken Livingstone was the councillor responsible for housing there.

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OLIVE MORRIS (26 June 1952 – 12 July 1979)

THANKS TO Remember Olive Collective (R.O.C. 2.0) AND ALL CONTRIBUTORS FOR THE ANTHOLOGY

Now available for download, Do You Remember Olive Morris is an anthology of personal and archival writings about Morris’ intellectual and activist engagements in London, Manchester and internationally. 

The publication was one of the outcomes of the project Do you remember Olive Morris?, alongside with this blog and a public collection comprising documents, photographs and over 30 oral history interviews (available at Lambeth Archives.

Download the anthology here

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Today in London’s racist history, 1973: Black Panther Unity bookshop destroyed by arson attack, Brixton .

Working class communities have always been subject to systematically hostile policing. But conditions in Brixton as in many other areas in Britain became much worse in the 1970s. Local communities,…

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Man in 'living death' 25 years after racist attack on the Downs

"Marlon and his family have now begun to try to pick up the pieces, and try to live as much of a normal life as possible"

Marlon, now 45, was 18 at the time of the racist attack in March 1994 and is still described by family and supporters as Bristol’s Stephen Lawrence.

20 fairground workers attacked young Black people at Bob Wilson’s Fair at the Downs in Bristol. Five people were hospitalised, more were injured and Marlon was left for dead. Marlon’s head injuries were so severe that he was in a coma and was unable to move or speak and he now communicates yes or no through blinking.

The attack on Marlon Thomas is not instantly known to many people in Bristol or the UK. Marlon’s family want to make sure that the younger generation remember and what happened remains in the city’s consciousness.

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Cymande: the classic British funk band you don’t know you know

They broke up in 1975, but their breaks kept returning to the charts in hits by De La Soul, the Fugees and many others. Now a new documentary is telling their remarkable story

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”The most significant date in the history of the black experience in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century is the year 1981. It began inauspiciously in the early hours of 18 January with a racist arson attack on a sixteenth birthday part in south-east London, which resulted in the deaths of thirteen young black people and twenty-six revellers suffering serious injuries. The response of the police, aided and abetted by sections of the media, with the implicit approval of the government, was to use their power to deny justice to the survivors of the fire, the bereaved and the dead. The shock, sorrow and outrage felt by black people throughout the country found expression in concrete political action. On 2nd March, some six weeks after the fire, the New Cross Massacre Action Committee, chaired by the late John La Rose, mobilised 20,000 people for a march through the streets of London. That Black People’s Day of Action was an unprecedented demonstration of black political power. It was a wake up call for the authorities, a  watershed moment that signalled a paradigm shift in race relations in the UK. Moreover, with the Day of Action came a leap in Black British consciousness of the power to bring about change.” - Linton Kwesi Johnson; The New Cross Massacre Story

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The Amazing Honky Tonk Woman - Winifred Atwell

Today we remember Winifred Atwell, who died on this day at the age of 69 in 1983. 

Winifred was a Trinidadian pianist known for her boogie-woogie and ragtime hits. In 1954 she became the first black person to reach #1 in the UK.

“Between 1952 when she reached number five with Britannia Rag, and 1959 when Piano Party reached number ten, she had eleven top-ten hits and is still the most successful female instrumentalist to have ever featured in the British pop charts.”

In 1956, Winifred opened a hair salon for Black women on Railton Road in Brixton. It was called The Winifred Atwell Salon.

“The Winifred Atwell Show was a British TV series which aired 1956 to 1957. It spent part of its run on the BBC, and part of its run on ITV. Atwell did a later series in the early 1960s called The Amazing Miss A. She was likely the first black woman to have her own series on British television.”

You might have seen Winifred Atwell featured in this artwork as part of the LDN WMN series for the #BehindEveryGreatCity campaign in 2018. (Artist: Carleen De Sözer)

Just some of Winifred’s achievements:

First black person to have a hit in the UK single charts.

Only female instrumentalist to have had a hit in the UK singles charts.

Sold over 20 million records.

First female pianist to be awarded the Royal Academy of music’s highest grading for musicianship.

An accomplished classical musician, she made one of the first stereo recordings: Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1952 her hands were insured with Lloyds of London for £40,000 - the policy stipulated that she was never to wash dishes.

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John La Rose

(December 27, 1927 - February 28, 2006)

John La Rose was a Trinidadian-born publisher, cultural activist and pioneer with an incredible legacy.

Before making his home in London, La Rose organised with workers and trade unions in Trinidad: “The encounter with white racism and the manoeuvres of the British capitalist power did not begin in England but in the Caribbean.”

In 1966, La Rose founded New Beacon Books, one of Britain’s first black publishing houses. He co-founded the Black Parents Movement (1969-1993), the George Padmore Institute (1991-), the Caribbean Artists Movement (1966-72) and organised the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books with Race Today Publications and Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications (1982-95).

“I saw publishing as a vehicle which gave an independent validation of one’s own culture, history, politics - a sense of one’s self - a break with discontinuity.”

In 1981, La Rose was the chair of the New Cross Massacre Action Committee (NCMAC) which led to the coordination of the Black People’s Day of Action (March 2, 1981).

John La Rose died of a heart attack on 28 February 2006.

Obituary: John La Rose https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/mar/04/guardianobituaries.socialexclusion

George Padmore Institute https://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/John%20La%20Rose

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Darcus Howe 

(February 26, 1943 - April 1, 2017)

Today we celebrate the life of Rhett Radford Leighton “Darcus” Howe. 

We remember his work as a television broadcaster, organiser, civil rights activist, member of the British Black Panther Movement and editor of Race Today.

Darcus Howe’s Political Biography by Robin Bunce and Paul Field is open access on Bloomsbury Collections:

www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/darcus-howe-a-political-biography