A week today, on Thursday 30th October, I'll be part of the crowd heading to the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Senate House, University of London to spend the day discussing "What's Happening in Black British History?" With some brilliant speakers and a lot of people already signed up to attend, it looks like it's going to be a really dynamic day!

I've put together a slideshow of related images, all with links, so do explore/ suggest what else I should add! 

This will be the first in a series of workshops I'm co-organising with Michael Ohajuru,  exploring the the history of peoples of African origin and descent in Britain. Future events are planned for February and May half-terms in 2015, and we aim to establish a national network of Black British History researchers and communicators. 

Why do we need to have this conversation now? We're coming to the end of the 28th Black History Month held in the UK since the first one in 1987. But much of the History on offer is American, or limited to the last century. We know about the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, but not the one in Bristol. 

It's thirty years since Peter Fryer’s Staying Power charted the history of Black People in Britain, taking the story back to Roman times with the paradigm-shifting opening line: "There were Africans in Britain before the English came here". Yet, with UKIP gaining in popularity, immigration is still a hotly contested topic, while slavery and colonialism continue to dominate popular perceptions of Black British History. 

Despite the disappointing result of attempts to date to get more Black History into the new National Curriculum, exciting new research is being carried out in the field of Black British History. In my own field, where Fryer's book only devoted a few pages to Africans in Britain pre-1700, there are now three books covering the Tudor period alone: by Imtiaz Habib (2008), Onyeka (2013), and my own (forthcoming, 2016). The fact that we had over 30 paper proposals for the nine slots available to present at the workshop shows the strength and depth of research in this field. 

Popular interest in the subject can be seen from Hollywood, with the advent of Belle (2014) to the large crowds that gathered to celebrate the launch of the Black Cultural Archives when it opened in Brixton in July. Much work has been done in the field by individual researchers, archivists, curators and projects across the country. But, much more needs to be done to spread the word about Black British History across Britain’s classrooms, museums and newspapers. That's what this conversation will be about. 

With a great line-up of speakers, all actively involved in researching and communicating Black British History, the event will showcase new directions in research, exciting developments in the archives, and innovative approaches to spreading the word! You can see the programme for the day here. 

There are just a few places still available, so register now to come join and the conversation! 
 
You can also join in via our Facebook and Twitter pages- #WHBBH!

Looking forward to seeing you next week...

Regular readers of this blog might remember that this time last year, I wrote a series of letters to nine Influential Black Londoners as part of an exhibition at the National Trust's Sutton House in Hackney.

This Black History Season, the letters have returned to Sutton House: 

Last year, when we were putting the exhibition together, John Blanke was the only individual featured not to have his own entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This has now been rectified, and his entry appeared in the September 2014 update.

He is the earliest Londoner featured in the exhibition- alongside  Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano, Dido Elizabeth Belle, George Bridgetower, Francis Barber, Mary Seacole and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. 

This year, the original nine were joined by Doreen Lawrence, who was voted in as the most Influential Black Londoner of the 1980s/90s by visitors and schoolchildren in 2013. 

So I had to write a new letter to her, which was quite daunting, as it's quite different writing to a living correspondent! 

A tree has also been planted in her honour in the new Breaker's Yard garden. 

We also decided to substitute the Indian shampooing surgeon and restauranteur Sake Deen Mahomed for the Lascars, which as a group were rather the odd ones out before. 

Jane Porter, who did all the fantastic artwork for the exhibition last year, has created an activity trail for kids to enjoy this year. They can design a magical healing plant for Mary Seacole, decorate a paper boat for Olaudah Equiano, or draw up a campaign poster inspired by Doreen Lawrence, and much more.

Sutton House is also staging a play inspired by one of the 'Influential Black Londoners'- Total Insight Theatre Company's Olaudah Equiano: The Enslaved African will be performed in the house from 26th-29th November 7.30pm-9pm. You can buy tickets via Eventbrite or on the door. 

Influential Black Londoners is at Sutton House, 2&4 Homerton High Street, Hackney, London, E9 6JQ, now until the end of November. The house is open Weds – Sun, 10.30am-4.30pm.

Hope you get a chance to see it- do report back and tell me what 
you think!