The third ‘What’s Happening in Black British History?' workshop (#WHBBH3) is scheduled to take place in Senate House, University of London, on Thursday, 29 October 2015. See below for the Call for Papers, or click here to download a PDF version.

Following the success of our two previous events in London and Liverpool, we would like to invite you to the third of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies’ Black British History Workshops at Senate House, London, on Thursday 29 October 2015.

The aim of the series is to foster a creative dialogue between researchers, educationalists (mainstream and supplementary), archivists and curators, and policy makers. It seeks to identify and promote innovative new research into the history of people of African origin or descent in the UK.

Researchers and archivists will provide an introduction to the ever-growing body of resources available.

We will also discuss the latest developments in the dissemination of Black British history in a wide variety of settings including the media, the classroom and lecture hall, and museums and galleries, thus providing an opportunity to share good practice.

In our third workshop we would like to explore the following themes: What kinds of new approaches to teaching Black British History might help to foster a greater interest in the field?  

   - Do current teaching approaches focus excessively on the promotion of Black British heroes/role models from history?

   - Has enough attention been paid to gender in Black British History, including the role of women and members of the LGBTQ communities?

   - To what extent does Black British History need to take into account the conscious or unconscious exclusion of people of African origin or descent from the historical record?

The workshop will be divided into three panels, followed by a round-table discussion. Each panel will consist of three presentations lasting for 15-20 minutes.

We would be delighted to hear from researchers, educationalists, archivists and curators or others interested in offering a presentation. Please submit a title and a brief description of your presentation either in writing (in which case, of no more than 300 words) or in some other form (for example a clip or podcast) with an indication of which panel you envisage contributing to, to Dr. Miranda Kaufmann at mirandackaufmann@gmail.com by 31 August 2015.

The day will run from 11am to 6.00pm, followed by a Reception.

There will be a registration fee of £20 (£5 for students/unwaged) to cover the costs of lunch and refreshments. Registration will be open on Tuesday 1st of September.

Back in 2013, I was compelled to blog when Tim Bevan, producer of the 1998 film Elizabeth, told Juliet Gardiner on Radio 4 that if a black actor had been cast “in our Elizabeth movie, you wouldn't have been able to prove that, at all.” As regular readers will know, there is indeed proof. Records survive from 1574 and 1575 showing the Queen ordering clothes for a 'lytle Blackamoore' from her tailor. Further to this, a painting known as Elizabeth I at Kenilworth shows her being entertained by a small troupe of black musicians. 

But despite evidence of some 200 Africans living in Tudor England, from Hull to Truro, we do not find it represented in popular presentations of the period, such as Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Tudors, The Other Boleyn Girl, Wolf Hall, to name but a few.

Strangely enough, a better representation comes from an unexpected source: a 2007 episode of Doctor Who!
The Shakespeare Code starred David Tennant as the Doctor, and Freema Agyeman as his companion Martha Jones. Agyeman is half Iranian and half Ghanaian, and this meant the writer, Gareth Roberts, had to consider how this would play out when she time travels to Elizabethan England. When Martha realises she has just arrived in London in 1599, she has the following exchange with the Doctor:

MARTHA
Oh, but hold on. Am I all right?  I’m not gonna get carted off as a slave, am I? 

THE DOCTOR
Why would they do that? 

MARTHA
Not exactly white, in case you haven’t noticed. 

THE DOCTOR
I’m not even human. Just walk about like you own the place.  Works for me. Besides, you’d be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time. 

At this point, two African women walk past them. In a few moments, this scene makes two important points:

1) There was a black presence in Elizabethan London 
2) The Africans in Elizabethan London were not treated as slaves

These are two points I try to convey in my work. Africans can be found in the parish registers, tax returns, court records and letters of Elizabethan London. There was no law of slavery in England. Furthermore, Africans were paid wages, baptised, married, allowed to testify in court: all indicators of freedom. In 1587, Portuguese physician Hector Nunes admitted to the Court of Requests that he had: ‘no remedie…by the course of the Common Law of this realme... to compell’ an 'Ethiopian' who 'utterly refuseth to tarry and serve' him 'to serve him duringe his life.'

Far from being carted off as a slave, Martha finds herself being courted by Shakespeare himself. 

When Shakespeare first meets Martha, he asks the Doctor 'who is your delicious blackamoor lady?' Martha is not impressed with being referred to as a 'blackamoor'.  'Oops.' says Shakespeare, 'Isn’t that a word we use nowadays?' 'Blackamoor' was in fact the most common word used to describe Africans in Tudor England. About 40% of the references I found used the word. Martha is no more impressed by the other alternatives Shakespeare posits: 'An Ethiop girl? A swarth? A Queen of Afric...' This nicely dramatises the fact that the Elizabethans would not have considered such terms offensive in the way we might now. 

This being Doctor Who, our heroes must then save the world from some aliens disguised as witches. But in the closing moments, the script makes another interesting reference. Shakespeare bids farewell to Martha: 'Martha, let me say goodbye to you in a new verse. A sonnet for my Dark Lady. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate...' The quote is from Sonnet 18, rather than one of the Dark Lady sonnets (127-154), but the suggestion is nonetheless raised that Shakespeare was inspired to write these poems by an African woman. This has been the subject of much scholarly debate-while some insist the lady merely had dark hair, others suggest that the sonnets should be renamed the “Black woman sonnets”. The idea that the Dark Lady was of African origin also makes a cameo appearance in Zadie Smith's White Teeth (2000). In Chapter 11: The Miseducation of Irie Jones, Irie asks her teacher Mrs. Roody if the “dark lady” is “black”. Mrs Rooney replies:

          No dear, she's dark. She's not black in the modern sense. There weren't any… well, Afro-Carri-bee-yans in                   England at that time, dear. That's a more modern phenomenon, as I'm sure you know. But this was the 1600s.           I mean I can't be sure, but it does seem terribly unlikely, unless she was a slave of some kind, and he's unlikely           to have written a series of sonnets to a lord and then a slave, is he? 

A miseducation indeed! As the Doctor could have told Irie's teacher, 'you’d be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time.' 



You can watch The Shakespeare Code online here.