American Fiction available nationwide in cinemas only Cord Jefferson's debut American Fiction is a funny, fresh and insightful satire that follows a frustrated novelist-professor who writes an outlandish satire of stereotypical 'Black' books, only for it to be mistaken by the liberal elite for serious literature and published to both high sales and critical praise. The Colour Purple streaming on demand on all platforms This musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Colour Purple, includes a star-studded cast in Taraji P. Henson, Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Coleman Domingo and Halle Bailey. Mea Culpa streaming on Netflix Mea Culpa is a legal thriller written and directed by Tyler Perry. A criminal defence attorney played by Kelly Rowland takes on the case of seductive artist (Trevante Rhodes) who is accused of murdering his girlfriend. But when desire takes hold of them both, things get hot - and dangerous. Miss Juneteenth streaming on ITVX and Amazon Prime Nicole Beharie gives an amazing performance as Turquoise, a former beauty queen who tries to mold her rebellious teen daughter into her Miss Juneteenth pageant footsteps and grows closer to her in the process. Back on the Strip streaming on demand on all platforms Back on the Strip is a raucous comedy starring Kevin Hart, Wesley Snipes and Tiffany Haddish. It tells the story of Merlin, who moves to Las Vegas after losing the woman of his dreams. He gets hired as a frontman in a revival of the notorious Black male stripper crew, the Chocolate Chips. The Blackening streaming on demand on all platforms The Blackening is a horror comedy directed by Tim Story and starring Grace Byers, Jermaine Fowler, Melvin Gregg, X Mayo, Antoinette Robertson, Sinqua Walls, Jay Pharoah and Yvonne Orji. The film, set on Juneteenth, follows a group of Black friends targeted by a masked killer while staying at a cabin in the woods. Honk for Jesus. Save your Soul streaming on demand on all platforms Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul is a mockumentary comedy film written, directed and produced by Adamma Ebo, in her feature directorial debut. It stars Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown as the first lady and the pastor of a megachurch, who attempt to reopen and rebuild their congregation, following a major scandal. Rustin streaming on Netflix Coleman Domingo gives an Oscar-nominating performance as social activist Bayard Rustin who faced racism and homophobia as he helped change the course of Civil Rights history by orchestrating the 1963 March on Washington. Single Black Female streaming on Paramount Plus Amber Riley and Raven Goodwin star in this bonkers, so ‘good it’s bad’ thriller Single Black Female. Goodwin plays talk show host Monica who becomes close friends with her new assistant, Simone (Amber Riley), a deranged woman who plans to take over Monica’s life for good. Focusing on black talent.... The Creator streaming on Disney+ Action star John David Washington stars in the sci-fi action movie The Creator. In the future, the human race and artificial intelligence are at war, ex-special forces agent Joshua (John David Washington) is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI. The Creator has developed a mysterious weapon that has the power to end the war and all of mankind. As Joshua and his team of elite operatives venture into enemy-occupied territory, they soon discover the world-ending weapon is actually an AI in the form of a young child. Cold Copy streaming on demand on all platforms Girlfriends and Black-ish star Tracee Ellis Ross plays a famous journalist known for her hard-hitting exposes in the drama/thriller Cold Copy. When an ambitious journalism student (Bel Powley) falls under the thrall of an esteemed yet cut-throat news reporter (Tracee Ellis Ross) whom she's desperate to impress, even if it means manipulating her latest story and the very idea of truth itself. Image credits: Vertical Entertainment, 20th Century Fox

The first of February marks the start of Black History Month in several countries including the USA, Canada, and Germany. And the start of Pride month in the UK too! Throughout the month of February, join us in learning about the Black Britons who have led the way in LGBT+ history in the UK and stories behind some of the faces of other global Black History Months. Remember, you can explore Black British History beyond a designated month and we’re committed to helping guide you through your journey learning about UK Black History all throughout the year. Start your journey today by learning about Black British LGBT+ trailblazers: Ivor Cummings, Pearl Alcock, Justin Fashanu, and Olive Morris. Or check out our features on Ira Alridge, who was Britain’s first Black Shakespearean actor, media recommendations for the month, and our Global Black quiz to play with family and friends. Check out our social media accounts or subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter for regular updates!

Google Doodle celebrates the brilliant American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, who is remembered for his many literary works, which often explored themes of social justice. On the1st February 2024, in honour of Black History Month USA, Google Doodle celebrated the life of the extraordinary writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin. He was born on the 2nd August 1924 in New York City. He grew up in Harlem and helped raise his eight siblings. As a young teenager, he followed his step-father’s influence and became a junior minister at a church in Harlem. He also got involved in his high school’s magazine where he began publishing poems, short stories and plays. His time working on the magazine honed his literary skills and solidified his passion for writing. In his late teens and early 20s, he took on odd jobs to support his family and, in parallel, set a goal to write a novel. In 1944, Baldwin’s promise as a writer earned him a fellowship, but he found himself struggling to write his first novel which ended up taking 12 years to produce. This novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, is a semi-autobiographical story which is now considered one of the best English-language novels of the 20th century. At age 24, Baldwin made the decision to move to Paris for another fellowship. Distance from New York allowed him to write more freely about his personal experience. He wrote essays such as Notes of a Native Son, Nobody Knows My Name, and The Fire Next Time. His depictions of Black masculinity in America were as poetic as they were groundbreaking , and they resonated far beyond Black communities. He released his second novel, Giovanni's Room, in 1956. The novel was one of the first to bring in-depth characterizations of homosexuality to mainstream culture, well before the gay liberation movement had gained steam. In the following years, Baldwin continued to write essays and novels that addressed racial tensions in America head-on. In 1974, he wrote If Beale Street Could Talk, a tragic love story set in Harlem. The story was later adapted into an Academy Award-winning film in 2018. In 1986, Baldwin earned the Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur, the highest French order of merit. He went on to receive numerous awards during and after his lifetime. But, Baldwin’s influence is much greater than any award — his works provided valuable representation to people whose stories often went untold, and inspired many civil rights leaders who, in turn, made progress in society that impacted generations. Thank you, James Baldwin, for your massive contributions to the literary cannon - your voice has shaped how we approach conversations of identity and social justice.

George Lamming famously observed that it was in the UK that he and other intellectuals of the Windrush generation first “became Caribbean.” It was the place where island peoples found one another and reflected on their shared experiences in the face of an often-harsh reception in their ‘mother country.’ In the 1950s and 1960s, England was the place where artists came together from the newly formed “Commonwealth”. One crucial gathering was the formation of the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) in London in 1966. An important moment that influenced events in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Like the Harlem Renaissance that emerged in New York during the 1920s and 1930s, CAM was a diverse collection of writers, critics and artists who were interested in developing a modern Caribbean aesthetic -an aesthetic that explored colonial histories as well as defining a newly formed Black British identity. The movement was co-founded by Edward Kamau Brathwaite, the Barbadian-born historian and poet who came to Britain to complete a doctorate; Andrew Salkey, the Jamaican-born academic and broadcaster; and the political and cultural activist Trinidadian-born John La Rose. In 1968, Brathwaite wrote about CAM’s origins, dating them back to a small informal meeting held on 19 December 1966 in his London flat in Mecklenburgh Square: “What was to become the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) started in December 1966 in my Bloomsbury basement flat. I had recently arrived from the Caribbean on study leave to Britain, and as a writer myself, wanted, quite naturally, to get in touch with as many Caribbean artists as possible. But where were they? The novelists’ books were being regularly published; at the Commonwealth Arts Festival I had seen work by a few painters, designers and sculptors from the Caribbean; but no one seemed to know how to get in touch with them.” They were concerned that many Caribbean writers and artists were being marginalised and did not have the opportunity to meet up and discuss their work and interests. And so set out to create a forum to allow creative folks of any ilk to meet informally. As stated by the George Padmore Institute: CAM was inclusive rather than exclusive and essentially open to anyone who wanted to share and understand the needs and aspirations of Caribbean artists. The membership of CAM ranged from the illustrious titans of Caribbean creativity to new and upcoming artists. These included such eminent figures of the Caribbean arts as novelist, critic and historian C L R James, author of one of the very early West Indian novels, Minty Alley, novelist and poet Wilson Harris, and Pearl Connor, theatrical agent and activist. Among the CAM members representing the visual arts was distinguished sculptor Ronald Moody (younger brother of Dr Harold Moody), painter Aubrey Williams and textile designer, Althea McNish. Less established names at the time comprised the likes of Karl ‘Jerry’ Craig, Art Derry and Clifton Campbell, and younger emerging artists included Paul Dash, Winston Branch, Errol Lloyd, Winston Benn, and performance poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. In its intense six-year existence, it set the dominant trends in Caribbean arts, at the same time forging a bridge between Caribbean migrants and those who came to be known as Black Britons. The first CAM conference was held in 1967 in London, and a subsequent conference at the University of Kent in 1969. The work of CAM members was first brought to the British public eye by the BBC in the Caribbean edition of the magazine programme Full House, produced by John La Rose and transmitted on 3 February 1973, in which the work of writers, musicians and film-makers was presented in a studio setting of visual artists' work brought together by CAM member Althea McNish. CAM public sessions included such varied topics as ‘Africa’s Unique Dance Culture’ presented by John Akar, founder of the Sierra Leone Dance Company, and ‘Film as an Artistic Medium’, featuring Evan Jones and Horace Ové. Léon Damas of French Guiana was the subject of the first of three public sessions concerned with major poets from the French-speaking West Indies, followed by a focus on the more celebrated poets Aimé Césaire and Léopold Senghor of the Négritude movement in Paris of the 1930s. In ‘The Role and Nature of African Drumming’, Femi Fatoba, Nigerian musician, poet and actor and Tony Evora, Cuban musician and graphic designer, spoke about and played the tonal drums of the Yoruba as played in Fatoba’s homeland and as transferred to the Caribbean. Caribbean art and the social role of its proponents would go on to be explored through CAM seminars, workshops, readings, exhibitions and a newsletter. Among the popular venues was the Keskidee Centre, off the Caledonian Road, in Islington. Brathwaite’s momentous reading of his epic poem Rights of Passage at the Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre in Holborn, articulating the experiences of West Indian migrants in Britain using the rhythms of everyday speech, set the tone of what was to come. “It was a tremendously exciting reading,” recalled Sarah White (partner of John La Rose). “People had never heard of anybody like Eddie as British poets didn’t have that performance tradition in those days.” The high points of the CAM programme were undoubtedly its conferences. These involved distinguished speakers such as the writers CLR James and Michael Anthony, university lecturers and critics Kenneth Ramchand and Louis James, and painters Aubrey Williams and Clifton Campbell. At the first conference, a keynote was presented by Elsa Goveia, professor of West Indian history at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, on ‘The Socio-Cultural framework of the Caribbean’. Also present were representatives from British mainstream publishing houses such as Heinemann, Faber, Macmillan and Longman. Members of the audience – apart from writers, artists, actors, critics and university teachers, many affiliated to CAM – were students of drama and medicine, literature and history, alongside teachers, librarians and academics from several Commonwealth countries as far afield as Ghana, Nigeria, Canada and Australia. Like all CAM events, these conferences were tape-recorded for posterity. Together with the CAM newsletter, these tape recordings proved an invaluable source of information for Anne Walmsley, then Longman’s Caribbean publisher. She was introduced to CAM by Kamau Brathwaite, one of whose poems she had included in her West Indian schools’ anthology, The Sun’s Eye. Although she attended several public meetings, the first conference at the University of Kent at Canterbury provided her first full CAM experience. She was so impressed by what she saw and heard that she wrote accounts of this and the second conference for BIM, the Barbados magazine, and much later wrote a comprehensive documentary history of CAM. The Caribbean Artists Movement, 1966–1972: A Literary and Cultural History, published in 1992 and is still available from New Beacon Books, includes biographical information about the participants as well as colour plates of the sculpture and paintings of the CAM artists, together with numerous black and white photographs of individuals and events; this seminal publication affords an invaluabe insight into the Movement and the life and times of the period. In 1972 CAM ceased as a formal organisation as some of its leading lights left Britain for good. The 1971 Immigration Act also put a stop to the wave of Caribbean migrants and signalled the arrival in the public consciousness of the “born here, here to stay” generation of Black Britons. In October 2007, a retrospective of the movement’s work was held at gallery:space in Finsbury Park. The exhibition titled ‘Visions of Consciousness’, co-curated by Shiri Shalmy, aimed to show CAM’s “secret history” by displaying the work of visual artists from the movement, photographic records, film and original books. The event was attended by former members of CAM, including renowned children’s author and illustrator, Errol Lloyd. “I was self-taught and worked in isolation until I was introduced to Caribbean Artists Movement,” he says. “I met older artists like the sculptor Ron Moody and they acted like role models for me. From there my work developed.” CAM is acknowledged as being particularly significant in helping to “spark interest in the work of Britain’s artists of colour”. A number of later events and organisations, such as the International Book Fairs of Black, Radical and Third World Books, and the formation of Bogle L’Ouverture Publications and Creation for Liberation, all recognise the great impact of the movement on their work. More recently, artworks by Ronald Moody, Aubrey Williams and Winston Branch have been acquired by the Tate, with the intention of shining a brighter light on Caribbean-born British Black modernist artists, and the instrumental work of CAM. “The Caribbean Artists Movement pushed the boundaries of what was considered to be art. [But] above all, it established what Caribbean art was.” Sources: https://www.bl.uk/windrush/articles/caribbean-artists-movement-1966-1972 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caribbean_Artists_Movement https://angelacobbinah.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/caribbean-artists-movement-retrospective/ https://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/collections/caribbean-artists-movement-1965-1995 https://somethingcurated.com/2020/09/28/what-londons-caribbean-artist-movement-of-the-60s-70s-taught-us/ https://www.internationalcuratorsforum.org/the-caribbean-artist-movement-its-legacy/ https://www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org/collections/caribbean-artists-movement-1965-1995 Photo Credit: This photograph, entitled The Lime, captures Samuel Selvon, John La Rose and Andrew Salkey. Horace Ové / National Portrait Gallery, London. Image made available under Public Domain Mark from British Library.

Amanda Aldridge was a British opera singer and prolific composer of romantic 'parlour music.' On the 17th June, Google Doodle celebrated British composer, teacher and opera singer Amanda Aldridge. She released over thirty songs and dozens of instrumental tracks under the pseudonym Montague Ring. On this day in 1911, Amanda Aldridge gave a piano recital at London's pre-war principal concert venue, Queens Small Hall, the original home of the BBC Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestras. Amanda was born the daughter of Ira Aldridge, a Black American Shakespearean actor and Swedish opera singer in 1866, London. Showing her own musical prowess at a young age, Aldridge pursued a career as a vocalist at London’s Royal Conservatory of Music, where she studied under eminent Swedish soprano Jenny Lind. Aldridge’s singing career was soon cut short by a throat injury, but her talents only continued to grow as a vocal teacher, piano player and composer. Exploring her mixed ethnic heritage through the lens of music, Aldridge combined various rhythmic influences and genres together with poetry from Black American authors to create romantic Parlour music, a popular genre performed in the livingrooms of middle-class homes. Aldridge’s 1913 piano composition “Three African Dances,” inspired by West African drumming, became her most famous piece. In addition to her compositions, she taught civil rights activist Paul Robeson and one of America’s first great opera singers, Marian Anderson. Aldridge composed love songs, sambas, and orchestral pieces into her old age, garnering international attention for her fusion of musical styles. At 88, Aldridge appeared for the first time on television on the British show “Music for You,” introducing a new generation to her classic compositions.

Black History Month UK 2022 'Sharing Journeys' campaign - exploring the lives of Britons with North and South American heritage Jessica Huntley was born in the Latin American country of Guyana (formerly known as British Guiana) in the small village of Bagotstown in 1927. She was the only daughter and youngest of five children of James Carroll and his wife, Hectorine. When her father died, she was just three years old, and her family had to move to the low-income area of Charlestown in the county’s capital Georgetown. Despite the hardships of living in a tenement yard, her mother strove to instil the values of independence, discipline, justice, and loyalty in Jessica and her siblings. Jessica showed early academic promise, and a talent for public speaking, but financial constraints meant that she left secondary school before sitting exams. She took evening classes in shorthand and typing, skills that enabled her to find a job in a garment factory with the promise of a clerical position. Instead, she chose to side with the exploited women on the shop floor, articulating their grievances to the management. That instinct to confront situations of injustice and discrimination remained with her throughout her life. In 1948, she met Eric Huntley, a postal worker active in the trade unions. They married in 1950 and their sons, Karl (named after Marx) and Chauncey, were born in the subsequent two years. The marriage was underpinned by political involvement, whether in the village of Buxton, where they initially lived, or at a national level. In January 1950, Jessica Huntley co-founded the first national government of Guyana, elected through mass suffrage, alongside Leaders Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Eric Huntley, Eusi Kwayana, and Ford Burnham, and other members of the People’s Progressive Party. She was appointed as the organizing secretary of the PPP and stood as a candidate in the April 1953 general election, but was not elected. In May of the same year, Jessica co-founded the Women's Progressive Organisation to represent women's issues in the PPP's fight for national liberation. The party’s radical social reforms to transform the Guyanese economy and improve living standards of its working classes unnerved its neighbours in North America and drew ire from the colonial British government. Six months into their administration, the colonial British government sent in troops to remove the democratically elected government, claiming there was a threat of a Marxist revolution. In October 1953, the British suspended the constitution and instituted a state of emergency. Her husband Eric, and other PPP members, were arrested for minor misdemeanours and imprisoned for a year. General elections were held in 1957, by which time the PPP had split into two factions, which competed against each other at the elections; the PPP faction led by Jagan won nine seats, whilst the Burnham-led PNC faction won three. Disillusioned and unable to find permanent employment after his release, Huntley’s husband Eric left Guyana and travelled to Britain in 1957 to study. While Jessica became the organising secretary of the PPP and was persuaded to stand as a candidate for election. Her defeat, despite popular backing, freed her to join her husband in England in April 1958. Once in the UK, Jessica continued her activism, mainly through the power of publishing. When, in October 1968, the Guyanese radical historian Walter Rodney was banned from re-entering Jamaica to resume his post at the University of the West Indies, after attending a conference in Canada, the Huntleys were among those who mobilised support in the UK. Spurred on by this, they founded the ground-breaking publishing house Bogle-L'Ouverture Limited which was named after black revolutionaries Paul Bogle and Toussaint L’Ouverture. Later opening a bookshop under the same name. Rodney's The Groundings With My Brothers (1969) was the first title to be published by BLP, which also published his influential work How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972). They went on to publish and popularise Maya Angelou, George Jackson, Valerie Bloom, Frantz Fanon and first published the poetry of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Lemn Sissay. Their small radical publishing house was initially located in the living room of their home at Coldershaw Road in West Ealing until the council objected. A vacant site in a local cul-de-sac was instead set up as a bookshop, and – despite racist attacks on the building by the National Front – remained open for 18 years, renamed the Walter Rodney Bookshop in 1980 after his assassination. The place soon became a visitors’ hotspot, central focus for Black and migrant communities, becoming an informal drop-in advice centre and hosting poetry readings, book launches and school workshops. On 13th June 1980, Guyanese historian, political activist and academic, Walter Rodney was killed by a bomb in his car which had been planted by Gregory Smith, a member of the Guyana Defence Force. The radical Black movement in the UK, including Bogle L’Ouverture Publications, the Alliance of the Black Youth Movement, the Black Parents Movement, Race Today Collective and ‘Bradford Black’ Collective, joined forces with others across the world, from Ghana to Grenada, from Tanzania to Trinidad, from Nigeria to New York, to protest what was evidently an assassination by the Forbes Burnham government and call for Gregory Smith to be charged with murder. Smith was flown out by the Burnham regime to French Guiana where he remained until his death in 2002. In his obituary of Jessica Huntley, Gus John described Bogle L’Ouverture Publications as ‘an act of cultural affirmation and an expression of political belief at the interface of culture and politics in a Britain struggling perennially to come to terms with the legacy of Empire.” The political act of publishing… gave direction to our movement. If ‘knowledge is power’, the absence of knowledge and information renders a movement powerless, especially a lack of knowledge of how those who have designs for you see you historically and want to organise and control you mentally and structurally. In a post-imperialist culture, the power that comes from knowledge is also the power that derives from unlearning certain myths about yourself and debunking the ways you have been taught to see and think about yourself. So, when in our work with young children we discovered that black children were typically drawing themselves as white, or expressing a preference for white dolls and seeing white friends as, nicer and more desirable, Jessica and Eric published the eye-catching and upbeat little colouring and story book ‘Getting to Know Ourselves’. For more than a half-century Jessica and Eric Huntley, were at the heart of grassroots struggles for racial and social justice. They were closely involved with the Black Parents Movement, which campaigned against the controversial SUS laws that particularly targeted young Black people, and organised legal defence for Black and Asian people arrested during the Southall riots of 1979, the New Cross Massacre Action Committee, organiser of the 1981 Black People's Day of Action march that attracted 20,000 Black Britons from all over the country and was the largest protest march of Black Britons to take place in Britain, and patronage of the Keskidee Centre, Britain's first African-Caribbean cultural centre from the 1970s to the 1990s. In 1982, she helped set up the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books with the Huntley’s close friend and political comrade, John La Rose, to bring together Black publishers, intellectuals and educationists. The ethos of the Book Fair was "to mark the new and expanding phase in the growth of radical ideas and concepts, and their expression in literature, politics, music, art and social life." Soon after she teamed up with Margaret Busby, co-founder of Allison & Busby publishing house, and Britain’s youngest and first Black female book publisher. Along with others, they founded the Greater Access to Publishing (GAP), a voluntary group campaigning for greater diversity within the mainstream publishing industry. Jessica and her husband were also active in international campaigns to end the South African apartheid regime, political repression in their home country Guyana and free American, former Black Panther and radio journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal who was on death row in Pennsylvania. On the 13th October 2013, Jessica Huntley passed away at Ealing Hospital, following a short illness at the age of 86 years. She and her husband were highly respected within the British Black community as elders for their longstanding commitment, contribution and participation in radical movements and organisations that articulated the interests of the UK Black community. In 2005, papers relating to the business of Bogle-L'Ouverture, together with documents concerning the personal, campaigning and educational initiatives of Jessica and Eric Huntley from 1952 to 2011, were deposited at London Metropolitan Archives (LMA). In that same year LMA hosted the first Huntley Conference, and since 2006, the Huntley Archives at LMA have inspired an annual conference on themes reflecting different elements of the content of the collection. A blue plaque, organised by the Nubian Jak Community Trust and others, was unveiled in October 2018 outside the Ealing home of Jessica Huntley and Eric Huntley to commemorate their work in founding Bogle-L'Ouverture and eventually giving Huntley the recognition she deserved. Sources: https://flexpub.com/epubs/97808078769611558197699/OEBPS/bano_9780807876961_oeb_c02_r1.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Huntley https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/27/jessica-huntley https://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/jessica-huntley-political-and-cultural-activist-dies-86 https://irr.org.uk/article/jessica-huntley/ https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/jessica-huntley-a-woman-of-the-word/ https://www.ealingtimes.co.uk/news/16910903.blue-plaque-mark-work-ealing-activist-couple/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/26/mi5-files-coup-british-guiana https://fhalma.org/bogle-louverture-publications/ https://search.lma.gov.uk/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/LMA_OPAC/web_detail?SESSIONSEARCH&exp=refd%20LMA/4463 https://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/jessica-huntley-political-and-cultural-activist-dies-86

Black History Month UK 2022 'Sharing Journeys' campaign - exploring the lives of Britons with East African heritage Kathleen Wrasama (also known as Kathleen Wrsama) was born in Ethiopia and brought to England by missionaries in the early 1900s. Little is known about her early life, but her birth was registered in England as the 15th May 1904. In an interview with Kathleen about her life, she described her time with the missionaries as “They weren’t very physically cruel to me, they were mentally cruel to me. I was [on] exhibition [as] one of the heathen children from Africa. Anything like Sunday School, I used to be put on the table as a representative of one of the heathens, this is a representative of what we’re trying to do in this dark continent.” [1] The Kingdom of Aksum in present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea was one of the first Christian countries in the world, having officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church (called Tewahdo in Ethiopia) is one of the oldest organized Christian bodies in the world. Despite this, it wasn’t immune to the missionaries who flooded the African continent from the middle of the 18th century to spread western Christianity and education – paving the way for the colonisation of Africa. Although Ethiopia was the only African country to not be colonised by the Europeans. During the early 1900s, it wasn’t unusual for missionaries to adopt children from overseas and bring them back to the UK. Kathleen was one of those children. Not much is known about their lives and little written evidence exist to tell us how they felt about living in a foreign land away from their homelands. Kathleen’s story is one of the few accounts of these children. Kathleen describes her early life in England as: “I stayed with [the missionaries] until I was about 8 [years, and] when they died, I was sent to a [children’s] home [where] I was ostracised. I wasn’t allowed to mix with any of the [other] girls, I was like somebody from Mars… I was stoned in the village.” [1] The only information available about her children’s home is its location in Yorkshire. She described her time there: “… there was no black people at all [not one where I was raised]… when I used to walk around [sometimes round] the streets, they’d come running out, they would say, ‘Mum, mum, there’s that funny girl’, and they couldn’t make me out. They didn’t know who I belonged to and when I was in the home, I wasn’t allowed to mix with any of the girls, I use[d] to wonder why, I use[d] to wonder why can’t I eat with them, why can’t I sleep with them. I use[d] to have to go upstairs and sleep in the attic right at the top of the stairs, or I was down in the cellar, down in hell, picking the coal up for the fires.” [1] Kathleen ran away several times from the children’s home to escape the abuse. When she was 13 years old, she found a labouring job on a farm. She recalled: “I got a job… on Mr Bagshots’ farm. I never had any money, [I’d] never been in a shop, I didn’t know what it was to talk to people, I didn’t dream to ask for wages… I worked there for some time in Mr Bagshot farm. When his wife took asthma, the doctors said she had to go somewhere warm, so I had to uproot, and I went to work [on] another farm.” [1] Whilst working on this new farm, she became friendly with the Norwegian owners, who taught her to read. Kathleen moved to Wales to find work after the owners left the UK and moved back to Norway. She said: “I thought that I was a heathen, I thought being a heathen was a different race, [a] race of people... I was looking and seeking who I am, surely, I must belong to somebody. Even in Wales I didn’t see a black person, even then I was on a farm, I was right away out of it. So, I decided I’d come to London, and see what [it] was like.” [1] Kathleen’s life turned around when she went to London. She found a community and slowly discovered and reconnected with her East African roots and one hopes, banishing memories of her traumatic childhood. She initially found a job working in an Italian coffee house in central London and whilst working there she met some people who helped her find work as a film extra. She explained: “I didn’t know what films were. [A customer in the coffee store] said I could get work as a film extra. And she got me on the films. It was through the films I met some Ethiopians there and going to the Ethiopian embassy, I met my husband.” After the actor, singer and political activist Paul Robeson and his wife Eslanda moved to London in 1930. His artistic residence caused a boom in demand for black extras to appear in his films. Many working-class black men and women like Kathleen found well-paid work with some earning up to 21 shillings (or £1.05 in modern currency) a day. In 1945, she married former Somali seaman, Sulaban Wrsama in Stepney, East London. Embraced by the Somali community she finally found a home and no longer saw herself as a ‘heathen’. She said about her husband: “He was Somali, he was a wonderful man. He’s African, he was the first person that really to say ‘I love you and really mean it’ to me”. She and her husband opened a boarding house for black seaman in Stepney, East London which had become a settling spot for several ex-seaman from the commonwealth who fought for Britain in the 2WW. Kathleen described the area: “I could take you around the world [here].” The black seaman faced discrimination in accessing housing, were refused entry in bomb shelters during air raids and endured racial attacks. Kathleen tried to help them and complained often to the colonial office about their treatment. She even reached out to Lapido Solanke’s WASU for help “I use to go and ask them [to] come and talk to your men, you know your language, speak to them and tell them where they can go and get help with the housing cos we’re not strong enough… we haven’t got the power… your educated, give us some support at least… No, they didn’t come, they want to come past the east end…” So, in 1951 she founded the Stepney Coloured People’s Association (SCPA), which was committed to improving community relations, as well as education and housing for black people. The committee would meet at 84 Cable Street, now known as Burlington Court, which is where Wrasama would contribute to changing British history forever. The Stepney Coloured People’s Association (SCPA) ran for eight years. Although its formation was significant, it wasn’t the first local group to support black rights in the East End; the United African Brotherhood Society was formed in Stepney in 1919 and the 1930s saw the formation of The Coloured Seamen’s Association which sought to protest against the employment crisis afflicting black seamen at the time. All were short-lived organisations that effectively served their purpose and then dissolved. The SCPA sought to campaign for better rights for all ‘coloured’ people in Stepney and this broad coalition built on the premise that despite distinct ethnic, tribal and national identities, that they were united in their fight against racism and discrimination. Kathleen said: “[On the committee] we had Hindus, Ghanaians, Yoruba, Somali.” The formation of Association linked the black community in East London with other grass-roots organisations working to represent people from the colonies in all sorts of capacities. Academic Laura Tabili observed, these groups were central to the emergence of a ‘multicultural Black political identity’ which ‘coexisted with but transcended religious, cultural and linguistic diversity’ up until the beginning of the 21st century. The Association sought to establish its own housing bureau, capable of recommending responsible ‘coloured’ people as prospective tenants to those landlords that did not hold a colour prejudice. It petitioned Stepney Borough Council and the London County Council (LCC) to extend their hostel and social provision, and looked to the Clifton Institute for Coloured Peoples in Birmingham as a model for the LCC to follow in Stepney, suggesting a new building was not entirely necessary but greater support was. The Clifton was one of a number of newly established social and educational centres funded by municipal authorities. The model was clear, but no action was taken and the SCPA was itself wound up in 1959 on account of a substantial decline in the size of the area’s black community. Kathleen Wrasama died in February 1996 in Tower Hamlets. She lived a remarkable life that spanned a century of change in Britain. She overcame the racial abuse of her childhood to find love and a place within the black community of East London. When I see my people together, I’m on heaven… It’s like drinking wine to refresh your soul, when you meet all your people together. It’s like a drink that comes inside you and it uplifts you. You can go out and you can face the world again. You got your strengthen from your own people… I know I belong at last. Kathleen took the trauma of her youth and used it to power her commitment to improving the lives of her fellow black people. In 1982, she spoke of her life in London’s East End in an interview for the BBC documentary Surviving: Experience of Migration and Exile, and was later invited to visit a school, where she talked about her early years and her experiences of racism. She was an influential figure as a British community organiser. In her quest to help house members of the Black community, she formed an organisation that led to the creation of the social services we know today. Sources: [1] Kathleen Wrasama words are taken from a transcript of an interview now held by the Black Cultural Archives (BCA). The transcript is part of a folder that includes letters from children to Wrsama as part of a school project. LWT guidelines on interviewing and regarding a competition titled "The Making of Modern London 1914-1939", entered by the BCA. Also includes, report on investigation into conditions of the coloured population in the Stepney area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Wrasama https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/SwFzXeSzSVUR5Q?hl=en&childassetid=_QHexQH0hyANNA&ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.5%2C%22y%22%3A0.24659561870929592%2C%22z%22%3A10%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A1.0490033222591362%2C%22height%22%3A0.33688573120189463%7D%7D https://twitter.com/bcaheritage/status/1278010536446263296 https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10062039/3/Milne_This%20House%20is%20Africa_IRIS.pdf

The first of February marks the start of Black History Month in several countries including the USA, Canada, and Germany. And the start of Pride month in the UK too! This February, we want you to join us in exploring the history behind the country that started Black History Month and learn about the Black Britons who have led the way in LGBT+ history in the UK. ​ Remember, you can explore Black British History beyond a designated month and we’re committed to helping guide you through your journey learning about UK Black History all throughout the year. Start your journey today by learning about Black British LGBT+ trailblazers: Pearl Alcock, Justin Fashanu, and Olive Morris. Or check out our features on Black History Month USA that include a profile on the African American actor, Ira Alridge, who was Britain’s first Black Shakespearean actor and the origins of Black History Month. We've also compiled a list of media recommendations for you to explore during the month and a Global Black History quiz to play with family and friends. Check out our social media accounts or subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter for regular updates!

Mary Seacole is now known for her medical work in the Crimean war, and as a brilliant woman who combated the racial prejudice she experienced in her lifetime. On the 14th October 2016, Google Doodle celebrated Mary Seacole, the Jamaican/Scottish nurse widely known to the British Army as “Mother Seacole.” She learned the ways of herbal medicine from her mother, a “doctress” well-versed in traditional Caribbean and African herbal remedies. Despite the challenges she faced as a woman of mixed race in the 1850s, she began experimenting with medicine under her mother’s guidance at one of the best facilities in Kingston, Jamaica. She moved to Gorgona, where she briefly ran a women’s-only hotel before she set off on a journey that would cement her place in history. When the Crimean War broke out, Mary’s application to assist was refused despite her nursing experience. Determined to help, she used her own limited resources to travel and set up a hotel behind the lines in Crimea. Here, she tirelessly tended to the curing and comforting of wounded soldiers coming off the battlefield and people from all walks in need: “The grateful words and smiles which rewarded me for binding up a wound or giving a cooling drink was a pleasure worth risking life for at any time.” Here’s to Mary’s legacy as an empowered healer and humanitarian, which will continue to live on and inspire.

Adelaide Hall was the jazz singer who introduced scat singing and was a household name in 1930s Britain. On the 20th October 2023, in honour of UK Black History Month, Google Doodle celebrated the 122nd birthday of Adelaide Hall, a jazz singer who is widely recognised for introducing scat singing during the Harlem Renaissance. The American-born, UK-based entertainer had a record-breaking career that spanned more than 70 years. The Doodle artwork was illustrated by London-based guest artist Hannah Ekuwa Buckman. Hall was born on this day in 1901 in Brooklyn, New York. Adelaide’s father taught her and her sister piano from a young age. After the tragic deaths of her father and sister, Adelaide had no choice but to support herself and her mother. She began her career singing in the chorus line for Shuffle Along (1921), a popular all-Black musical on Broadway that helped establish African American show business. In 1925, Hall embarked on a European tour for Chocolate Kiddies playing in numerous cities including Hamburg, Geneva, Paris, and Vienna. The show was a resounding international success. Later, she returned to Manhattan and continued performing on Broadway’s biggest stages. Her breakout moment came in 1927 when she hummed along to a show tune by Duke Ellington. The jazz star was entranced by her wordless yet emotive melody and asked her to record it with his band. A year later, that same song, Creole Love Call, landed on the American Billboard charts at #19 — and just like that, scat singing was born. It wasn’t long before Adelaide Hall became a household name in both the U.S. and Europe. Soon after, Hall joined the cast for Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1928. The musical ran for more than 500 performances and attracted over a million viewers before moving to the Moulin Rouge in Paris. The audiences in Europe welcomed her with open arms, so much so that she decided to permanently move to the U.K. in 1938. Her international success only grew from there. Hall’s entertainment career spanned an impressive eight decades — in fact, she currently holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s most enduring recording artist. Her songs continue to move listeners with each note and lyric, and her legacy lives on in the hearts of many. Happy birthday, Adelaide Hall!

Black History Month UK 2023 'Before Windrush' - exploring the lives and stories of Black Britons who were living in the UK before the arrival of Empire Windrush in 1948. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was a Black British composer, whose father was from Sierra Leone. He rose to acclaim during the 20th century, and his most famous work was Hiawatha's Wedding Feast. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was born on 15 August 1875 in Holborn, London. His father was from Sierra Leone who came to Britain to study medicine at King's College London. His father returned to Sierra Leone and he was raised in Croydon, South London, by his mother Alice. Starting at the age of five, Coleridge-Taylor played the violin and sang in his local church choir in Croydon. His talents were noticed and he was sponsored to study at the Royal College of Music in 1890, studying composition under Charles Villiers Stanford. Coleridge-Taylor is considered a pioneer in classical music and an iconic figure in Black British history. His notable works include ‘Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast’ (1898), ‘The Death of Minnehaha’ (1899), and ‘Hiawatha’s Departure’ (1900). They received popular acclaim rivalled that of Handel's Messiah’ and Mendelssohn’s ‘Elijah’. The Hiawatha trilogy was popular with British choirs and orchestras. From 1903 until his death in 1912, he was a professor of composition at the Trinity College of Music and Guildhall School of Music in London. He also judged numerous competitions around Britain, and was the conductor of the Handel Society, the Rochester Choral Society, and many provincial orchestras. The early 20th century saw the formal emergence of Pan-Africanism and Coleridge-Taylor’s music and career embody these influences. Coleridge-Taylor was the youngest delegate to participate in the First Pan-African Conference in 1900, when he was 25. He spent time abroad in both Africa and America, where he developed diasporic connections with leading thinkers and activists fighting for racial equality. In 1904, Coleridge-Taylor visited Booker T. Washington in America, who lead civil rights campaigns for Black empowerment through education and economic advancement. His relationships with Black community across the diaspora encouraged shared experiences and an engagement with Pan-African principles and theories. The Pan-African movement advocated for Black communities to recognise their African heritage and cultural roots. Coleridge-Taylor’s works were also inspired by African American author and civil rights activist W.E. B. DuBois. W. E. B. DuBois’ Pan-Africanist ideologies strongly influenced the liberation and civil rights activism of the 20th century. His prolific essay ‘The Soul of Black Folks’ inspired Black diasporic communities internationally. Coleridge-Taylor also worked closely with another African American, the poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar setting some of his poems to music. The cantata, ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ was symbolically adopted by the American civil-rights movement during the early 20th century. Despite Coleridge-Taylor’s popularity amongst British aristocrats he still faced racist abuse in his everyday life and critics often downplayed his achievements as “domesticated” and appeasing his mixed-heritage. Nevertheless, Coleridge-Taylor’s success is undeniable as his works were presented in concerts, orchestras, choirs and theatres. He became one of a new generation of musicians who brought innovation to classic composition. Coleridge-Taylor often proclaimed his own African heritage through his music and sought to draw on African melodies, and saw it is a form of his own expression and exploration. Most notable pieces include ‘Touissant L’Overture’ and ‘Twenty Four Negro Melodies’. In this way, Coleridge-Taylor’s work has been described as demonstrating Pan-African sentiments and the early connection of the Black Atlantic. This composition is a tribute to the Ethiopian victory over Italian forces in the Battle of Adwa in 1896. Italy attempted to invade Ethiopia during the scramble for Africa, but were defeated by the Ethiopian military. The battle of Adwa has since been celebrated as an important turning point in African history and has come to symbolise the possibility of European colonial defeat. Coleridge-Taylor’s work has been used in academic research to exemplify the power of musicology to influence social power, economic dominance and institutional spaces. As academic George Revill notes, ‘music has long served church, state, and aristocracy, accompanying ritual and ceremony, playing a fundamental role maintaining and justifying the power of elites. In the twentieth century, for example, art music has served the causes of imperialism, nationalism, and totalitarianism.’ (Edward Said, 1992). Coleridge-Taylor died in 1912, his death was widely reported across the Black Atlantic with news reports in Sierra Leone Weekly News and The Norwood Review and Crystal Palace Reporter in London. He was considered a beacon of hope and an iconic figure of Black British history for his achievements and success in classical music. Sources: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/samuel-coleridge-taylor-musical-legend-black-cultural-archives/jAWhGhRCgoqtLQ?hl=en https://www.classical-music.com/composers/samuel-coleridge-taylor/ https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/who-was-samuel-coleridge-taylor-what-famous-for/ https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200038837/ https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/blackeuro/pdf/coleridge.pdf https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp05180/samuel-coleridge-taylor

Black History Month UK 2023 'Before Windrush' - exploring the lives and stories of Black Britons who were living in the UK before the arrival of Empire Windrush in 1948. Learie Constantine is the epitome of Black Excellence and a truly modern renaissance man. A gifted sportsperson, civil rights activist, and politician whose life was crammed to the brim with Black Firsts. He was born in the small village of Petit Valley in north-west Trinidad on 21 September 1901, and was the second child of the family and the eldest of three brothers. His father, Lebrun Constantine, was a plantation foreman on a cocoa estate and a famous cricketer who had represented Trinidad and Tobago in the first-class cricket and toured England twice with the West Indian team. All his family loved cricket. His Uncle Victor was also a first-class cricketer who played for both the national and West Indian teams, and a third family member, Constantine’s brother Elias, also played for the national cricket team. Constantine wrote that although his family was not wealthy, his childhood was happy. He spent a lot of time playing in the hills near his home or on the estates where his father and grandfather worked. He enjoyed cricket from an early age, and his family regularly practised together under the supervision of father Lebrun and maternal Uncle Victor Pascall. At school, Constantine showed prowess in several sports and was respected for his cricketing lineage. He played for the school cricket team, which he captained for two years. He developed a reputation as a brilliant all-rounder player but didn’t start playing competitive club cricket until 1920 because his father wanted him to have a professional career. After graduating from school, Constantine joined a firm of solicitors in the Trinidad and Tobago capital city of Port of Spain as a clerk. His father saw this as a possible route into the legal profession for his son. But as a member of the Black lower-middle class, it was unlikely that Constantine would progress far. Since few Black Trinidadians at the that time became solicitors because of the social restrictions they faced due to their ethnicity. The Caribbean (or West Indies as it was known at the time) at the turn of the 20th century was still defined by the racial politics of the plantation slave system. For the millions of people emancipated under the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act their freedom didn’t extend to their political and economic freedom. They were still seen and treated by the state as ‘dependents’ rather than citizens. Restricted from moving up society’s social ladder and forced to eke out a living for themselves. With some even being forced to become wage labourers for former owners. For Constantine, this meant that a possible route into the legal profession didn’t exist. He was destined to be a solicitor’s clerk because he was a member of the Black lower-middle class. Because at the time, few if any Black Trinidadians could become solicitors. Unhappy with the lack of opportunities opened to him because of his colour, Constantine decided to pursue a career in professional cricket and use it as a means of securing a contract with an English cricket team. A talented all-rounder he secured a place on the West Indies Cricket team. And in 1928 he was selected for the team’s tour of England and wowed the crowds with his bowling and batting skills. In one notable all-round innings at the Lord’s Cricket Ground against Middlesex, he took seven wickets and hit 103 runs in just one hour. In fact, he was the first West Indian to take a wicket in a test match and the first person to ever take five wickets in one inning. In his memoirs, Cricket in the Sun (1947), Constantine highlighted the problems of racism in cricket. At that time, West Indies teams were almost invariably captained by a white man and whites-only dances were held after matches with England. It was also widely believed that Lancashire Cricket Club would have offered Constantine a contract was it not for the racial prejudice of some leading members. Constantine’s star performance caught the eyes of several English cricket clubs and whilst still touring he was offered a contract with Nelson in the Lancashire League. He signed an initial three-year contract with Nelson worth £500 per season, plus performance bonuses and travelling expenses. His cricket appearances boosted attendances and gate receipts for all Nelson’s matches and was of great financial benefit to both the club and the League as a whole. In Constantine’s eight seasons at the club, Nelson never finished lower than second, won the league competition six times and the knockout cup twice. “When the Constantine family first came to Nelson in 1929, the rag-and-bone was the only other Black man living in the town. Upon their arrival, they received some welcoming letters from the local people alongside racist and abusive ones. Little kids from the school over the road used to peep in through the windows of Constantine’s house, trying to steal glimpses of their local cricket club’s new pro. They pointed at him in the street, asked him if he’d been working down a mine, whether he could wash it off with soap. While his wife Norma was started at whenever she went shopping.” Constantine rationalised that the main reason for the racism his family experienced was out of ignorance rather than spite. Most, but not all. As he found out when he met Jim Blanckenberg, the South African all-rounder he had replaced. Constantine met Blanckenberg in his first year of playing for Nelson. Thousands of locals had come to watch the talented West Indian play his inaugural match against the East Lancashire side. With everyone looking on, Constantine offered the South African his hand and Blanckenberg turned his back on him. A justifiably furious Constantine then proceeded to take out the entire East Lancashire team in a flurry of deadly spin bowls with Nelson winning the match by four wickets. It was reported that after the game, Blanckenberg stormed into the Nelson’s changing room to complain about the bruises he’d received during the match. Constantine never apologised. By the end of their first summer in Lancashire, Learie was ready to return to the Caribbean, but it was his wife Norma who persuaded him to stay and make a home there. They settled in a prosperous and middle-class area of Nelson, No. 3 Meredith Street, and stayed there for over 20 years, making life-long friends, and becoming part of the community. Constantine went on to play with distinction between 1929 and 1938, while continuing as a member of the West Indies in tours of England and Australia. Sometime in 1933 Constantine published his first of many books, ‘Cricket and I’, with the help of his lodger, the prolific writer and political theorist, fellow Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) national C.L.R. James. James was at the forefront of a growing Caribbean nationalist movement, though Constantine had until then consciously avoided politics. Through James' influence, Constantine realised that his position gave him opportunities to further the cause of racial equality and independence for Trinidad and Tobago. He joined the League of Coloured Peoples, an organisation aiming to achieve racial equality for Black people in Britain. He helped James to get a job with the Manchester Guardian, and in return, James helped Constantine to write his first book. In later years, commentators identified Constantine's book as an important step in Caribbean nationalism, and an encouragement to future authors. For the 1938 cricket season, Constantine played for Rochdale in the Central Lancashire Cricket League, although he continued to live in Nelson. He didn’t enjoy the experience despite performing successfully. The pitches were different from his old league and some of the players were resentful of his earnings. Constantine was paid £812 for a season considerably more than other cricket players at the time. But Constantine was the box office draw who was pulling in the crowds and generating thousands in ticket sales. There was also an incident of racial abuse which Constantine believed the Central Lancashire League committee effectively covered up. This season ended Constantine’s career in the Lancashire Leagues, although during the war he returned to play for Nelson as an amateur. Learie didn’t give up his dream of becoming a solicitor and started studying law by correspondence course while still a professional cricketer. In 1939, he was taken into the family solicitor’s office of Alec Birtwell, a fellow Nelson cricketer. Had the war not intervened he would have become articled to this firm and started his new career in the law. When war broke out in 1939, Constantine choose to stay in Nelson rather than take his family back to the safety of Trinidad. He said: ‘I couldn’t run away. I had got a standard of life in England that I could never have achieved in my country. I had made a lot of friends. England to me stood for something and now that war had started, I would have felt like a little dog to have run away from England.’ At almost 40, he was too old for active service and initially worked as an Air Raid Precautions equipment officer, and a billeting officer for incoming evacuees. Although the war had affectively ended his career in top-class cricket, he continued to play league cricket and appeared in many wartime charity games. In 1941, he was offered the role of Welfare Officer with the Ministry of Labour and National Service, in conjunction with the Colonial Office. He was responsible for looking after the interests of West African seamen in Liverpool, and munitions workers and trainees from the West Indies in the north-west. He was initially based in Liverpool’s famous royal Liver Building and was helped by an assistant, Sam Morris, who was active in the League of Coloured Peoples. During Second World War large numbers of servicemen and women from across the Commonwealth were recruited to help Britain’s war effort. They included RAF pilots from the Caribbean, lumberjacks from Honduras working in terrible, bleak conditions in Scottish forests, and Jamaican technicians who worked in munition factories in and around Merseyside. These new arrivals needed support. Learie Constantine’s long experience of living in England, and his understanding of the prejudices and difficulties they would face, made him the ideal person to help them. Constantine worked closely with trade unions in an attempt to ease the fears and suspicions of white workers. He used his influence with the Ministry of Labour to pressurise companies who refused to employ West Indians, but generally preferred negotiation to confrontation, an approach that was often successful. In a newspaper interview with the Liverpool Echo in August 1954, he recalled how he had to resolve a housing issue between Black and white workers in a gunpowder factory. All the workers at the factory, including the Black workers, were put up in hostels. But some of the white workers ‘objected’ to the Black workers being housed. So, Constantine actually stayed in a hostel to promote understanding between the workers. The ruse worked and the Black workers were ‘permitted’ to stay in the hostels. He also went on to remember a racist incident in which he was accosted in a dance hall of one of the hostels by ‘a man in an American Air Force officers’ uniform. The American officer, who had ‘aggressively shouldered the whole length of the hall’ towards Constantine, yelled at him to ‘get out,’ shouting that ‘where we are’ they did not allow Black people to mix with white. However, it was ‘the aggressor who had to get out.’ Sadly, Constantine was to experience another American fuelled racial incident again in August 1943 when he was booked to play a charity cricket match at Lords. Ahead of the game he booked a four-night stay at Imperial Hotel, London for him and his family. He was reassured in advance that his colour wouldn’t be an issue. Upon arrival, he was denied accommodation for the full stay because management insisted his presence would offend the white American servicemen who were staying in the hotel. The case Constantine v Imperial London Hotels ruled in favour of Constantine and set a precedent on challenging racial discrimination in the court and providing Black people with the legal recourse against some forms of racism. Ironically, the British government had asked Constantine to produce radio broadcasts to West Indies, reporting on the involvement of West Indians in the war effort. As a result, he was often asked to speak on BBC radio about his life in England. His radio performances met with critical acclaim, and he became a frequent guest on radio panel shows; he also took part in a film documentary West Indies Calling in 1943 with Una Marson and Ulric Cross. His wartime experiences caused him to increase his involvement in the League of Coloured Peoples, sometimes referring cases to them. He particularly took up the cause of the children of white women and Black overseas servicemen; these children were often abandoned by their parents. However, plans to create a children's home for them came to nothing, leaving Constantine frustrated. He remained in his post until the summer of 1946, latterly concerned with the repatriation of the West Indian workers at the end of the war. He was awarded an MBE in 1947 for his ‘welfare work’ during wartime. After the second World War, Constantine moved his family to London where he worked as a journalist and broadcaster for the BBC whilst he studied law. To supplement his income and finance his studies, he took a few coaching jobs and wrote several books on cricket including Cricket in the Sun (1947) which covered his career and the racism he had encountered. He qualified as a barrister and was called to the bar by the Middle Temple in 1954. Having turned down an offer in 1947 to return to his old employer, Trinidad Leaseholds, in 1954 Constantine agreed to join the same company as an assistant legal advisor. Before leaving England, he published Colour Bar, a book that criticised not only racial inequality, but also British colonialism and empire. Although not viewed as radical by black audiences, it was aimed at white British readers. The British press gave it mixed reviews and criticised him for unfairness in parts of the book; other critics accused him of communist sympathies. Constantine returned to a country that was clamouring for independence from Britain. Feeling isolated in his job from his largely white colleagues. He gravitated towards the political movement for independence and accepted Eric Williams, leader of the newly founded People’s National Movement (PNM), invitation to become a party chairman and member of executive committee. In 1956, Constantine stood for election and narrowly won the constituency of Tunapuna. The PNM formed a government and Constantine became the Minister of Communications, Works and Utilities. He was a popular and successful politician and played a significant role in securing the country’s independence in 1962. After deciding not to stand for re-election in 1961 he accepted the role of Trinidad and Tobago’s first High Commissioner in London. Constantine returned to England with his wife in 1962. He was knighted the same year becoming Sir Learie Constantine and was given the freedom of the town of Nelson. However, his tenure as High Commissioner ended when he got involved in the Bristol Bus Boycott in 1963. Politicians in both Trinidad and Tobago and Britain felt a senior diplomat shouldn’t be so closely involved in British domestic affairs, particularly as he acted without consulting his government. Williams effectively withdrew his support from Constantine, who decided not to continue as High Commissioner when his term expired in February 1964. For the remainder of his life, Constantine lived in London. He returned to legal practice and was elected an Honorary Bencher of the Middle Temple in 1963. He also resumed work in journalism: he wrote and broadcast on cricket, race and the Commonwealth, and produced two more books: a coaching book The Young Cricketers Companion (1964), and The Changing Face of Cricket (1966) which included his thoughts on modern cricket. By the 1960s, Learie was firmly part of the UK establishment. He was founding member of the Sports Council, sat on the first Race Relations Board constituted under the 1965 Act, was appointed to the BBC's General Advisory Committee in 1966 and became a BBC Governor two years later, and in 1967 was elected Lord Rector of St Andrew’s University. However, he remained a vocal campaigner of racial equality and justice. Whilst on the Race Relations Board, he spoke out against the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, a stance that led to an offer from the Liberal Party, which he declined, to stand as parliamentary candidate for Nelson. Later, he was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to negotiate the release, after a military coup, of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the overthrown Prime Minister of Nigeria. In 1969, Learie Constantine became the UK’s first Black peer taking the title ‘Baron Constantine, of Maraval in Trinidad and of Nelson in the County Palatine of Lancaster’. Cementing his place as part of the UK establishment. His life peerage attracted widespread media attention, with Constantine stating: "I think it must have been for what I have endeavoured to do to make it possible for people of different colour to know each other better and live well together." In his last years, Constantine was criticised for becoming part of the Establishment. The new generation of Caribbean immigrants believed he was out of touch and the more radical Black activists disapproved of his conciliatory approach to racist incidents. Even the Private Eye mocked him. Reflecting on Learie Constantine’s impact on British society depends on where you stand; on the cricket field, in a broadcasting studio or in the House of Lords, where Learie was able to sit after becoming a life peer in 1969. Learie Constantine is a towering figure in British Black history. A man of many accolades and achievements. But perhaps CLR James described him best when he wrote of him: "Many doors in England were open to him. That doors were closed to other West Indians seemed more important to him.” Baron Constantine died aged 69 at his home in Hampstead, London on July 1, 1971. He was honoured on both sides of the Atlantic with a state funeral in Trinidad and a memorial service in Westminster Abbey. He was posthumously awarded Trinidad and Tobago's highest honour, the Trinity Cross. Several books have been written about him and he has two Blue Plaques, one erected on his former home in Nelson and an English Heritage Blue Plaque on his former address in Earls Court, London. Sources: Cricket and I by Learie Constantine and CLR James Connie: The Life of Learie Constantine by Henry Pearson Learie Constantine by Gerald Howat Learie Constantine by Peter Mason https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learie_Constantine https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/learie-constantine/#:~:text=CONSTANTINE%2C%20Sir%20Learie%20(1901%2D1971)&text=Britain's%20first%20black%20peer%2C%20Sir,%2C%20Colour%20Bar%20(1954). https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/constantine-learie-1901-1971/ https://www.bigredbook.info/learie_constantine.html https://www.neversuchinnocence.com/learie-constantine-second-world-war https://rylandscollections.com/2020/10/12/learie-constantine/ https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jun/30/learie-constantine-and-a-thread-that-runs-through-west-indies-cricket-history https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/03/west-indies-cricketer-accused-hotel-of-racial-discrimination-archive-1943