Black History Month Events October

Finding out about Black History Month events around the country is still a very haphazard experience. Even the www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk website has little on it, as well as being a very slow site to navigate through. The following list highlights of events on history rather than arts and culture and other issues.  Full programmes can be seen as follows:

Cambridgeshire County Council: www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/news/black-hist-month-12.htm.

Croydon Council: www.croydon.gov.uk/contents/departments/community/pdf/bhm-leaflet-2012.pdf.

Lambeth:

www.lambeth.gov.uk/Services/LeisureCulture/Libraries/BlackHistoryMonth.htm.

Manchester Black Feminists: http://blackfeministsmanchester.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/explore-black-history-with-8-lions-and-an-umbrella-a-conversation.

Reading: www.reading.gov.uk/events/details/57.

Sutton (London): www.suttonrec.org.uk/projects/black-history-month-2010.

Sutton Coalfield: www.educationgroup.co.uk/workshops/black-history-month.

Wandsworth:

www.wandsworth.gov.uk/downloads/file/6837/black_history_month/200062.

 

In October. An Indian Album – Cecil Beaton’s images of pre-Independence and Partition “India”. Photo exhibition from The National Archives. Southfields Library, 300 Wimbledon Park, Road, London, SW19. (020) 8871 6388.

 

In October. Memories from the Islands. Photo exhibition from The National Archives. Community curated exhibition by Caribbean elders featuring their choice of photographs and accompanying memory narrative of the Caribbean from the 1960s. Wandsworth Town Library, 11 Garratt Lane, London, SW18.  (020) 8871 5588.

 

In October. Call Mr Robeson performances by Tayo Aluko:

October 6: Capstone Theatre, Liverpool
October 13: Otley Courthouse SOLD OUT
October 15-18: Sheffield and Rotherham Schools. Details tbc
October 19: Rotherham College of Arts & Technology
October 22: Hawth Theatre, Crawley
October 23: Merlin Theatre, Frome
October 24: Arlington Arts Centre, Newbury
October 25: Ashcroft Arts Centre, Fareham
October 26: Forest Arts Centre, New Milton

Monday 1 – Sunday 14 October. Containing Multitudes. Exhibition of the letters of Sarah Hicks Williams, an American northerner in the slave-holding south. The letters are drawn from her papers, courtesy of the  Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library at the University of North Carolina. The event is funded by the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. The exhibition also includes a daily lecture as part of Black History Month and the chance to join an open discussion in Cafe Conversation sessions. Cafe conversations will take place in Cafe Bar Marzano at The Forum and begin 15  minutes after the public lecture ends. Tea and coffee is provided. 2 Millennium Plain, Norwich, Norfolk NR2 1TF

01603 727950 ‎ www.ontainingmultitudes.co.uk.

 

1 October. 2.30pm. SC-T in A Celebration and Education of Contributions made by Black People in England from Enslaved to Pioneers. Features Queen Liliuohalani, SC-T, Mary Seacole, Lewis Lattimer. Original Artwork  by pupils of Abbott Primary School and artist Rosetta Jallo, and authentic clothing exhibitions, music and Caribbean food. Mustard Tree, 110 Oldham Rd, Ancots, Manchester, M4. Tel Graham: 07401 820424.

 

Thursday 4 October. 1pm. The Black Presence in Norfolk from 1589 to 1883. Richard Maguire. This lecture seeks to explore established assumptions about rural spaces and communities by looking at the history of the black community  in Norfolk from 1589 to 1883. Fusion, 2 Millennium Plain, Norwich, Norfolk NR2 1TF

01603 727950 ‎ www.theforumnorwich.co.uk.

 

Thursday 4 October. 4.30 pm. The Zong: Slavery, Evil Deeds, and Re-thinking the Past: A basis for discussion. Talk by Professor James Walvin, Emeritus Professor of History, University of York. Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE), Oriel Chambers, 27 High Street, HULL, HU1. r.j.hanley@2011.hull.ac.uk..

 

Thursday 4 October. 5-7pm. ‘The Black Atlantic and the TransPacific: Literature and Mobility’. Talk by Michelle Keown. Edinburgh University Students Association Ethnic Minority Action Group. Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatre 1, Edinburgh University. www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/events/7856/1775.

 

Thursday 4 October. 5.15pm. Memories of Empire: A Roundtable on Bill Schwarz's 'The White Man's World'.  Jon Lawrence (Cambridge), Jeremy Krikler (Essex), Camilla Schofield at UEA, with a response from Bill Schwarz (Queen Mary). Imperial & World History Seminar, IHR, Senate House, Malet St/Russell Square, London, WC1.

 

Thursday 4 October. 7-8pm. Black in the British Frame.  Stephen Bourne will talk about his new black British history books Esther Bruce - A Black London Seamstress and The Motherland Calls - Britain's Black Servicemen and Women, 1939-45. Camberwell Library, 17-21 Camberwell Church Street, London,  SE5. Free.

 

Friday 5 October. 6.30 – 8.30.  Death of a Musical Genius: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Remembered. At The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), Cromwell Road, London SW7.  £9, £6 concessions. Book online or call 020 7942 2211. With the agreement of the V&A I will be selling Jeff’s mini-book.

 

Friday 5 October. 7.15pm.  Walter Tull, Officer and Footballer. Presented by the Barbados and Friends Association (Reading). Kennet Room, Civic Centre, Reading.

 

Friday 5 October. 7 – 9.15pm.  The legacy of Dr Martin Luther King. National Union of Journalists Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture. The Lecture is taking place  in Newcastle for the first time and celebrates the 45^th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King receiving an honorary doctorate at Newcastle University. This year’s lecture departs from the usual single speaker format to feature voices from the worlds of journalism, academia and politics who will all bring different perspectives to the theme. Speakers: Prof Brian Ward, Jim Boumelha Int Fed Journalists), Chi Onwurah (MP), Dr Connie St Louis (Association of British Science Writers), Dr Gerald L. Durley (US civil rights activist), Alex Pascall (African Caribbean Commuinicator) and Lionel Morrison (S. Arican exile in Britain from 1960. King's Hall, Armstrong Building, Newcastle University. Further details from David.baines@ncl.ac.uk or 0191) 222 8569. www.ncl.ac.uk/events/public-lectures/item.php?claudia-jones.

 

Saturday 6 – Sunday 14 October. Bengal History Week. Brick Lane Circle is organising its third annual history week programme, designed to help generate and expand interest in learning Bengal's history and introduce historians and scholars to new audiences in non-academic settings
For details see: www.bricklanecircle.org.

 

Saturday 6 October. 12noon - 4.30pm. Black History Month Multicultural Day. The National Museum Of The Royal Navy (Portsmouth Historic Dockyard). (Victory Gallery) FREE event, all ages welcome. The National Museum of the Royal Navy at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is inviting visitors to join them to celebrate black history and discover more about the Royal Navy's links to different countries around the world. www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/Hampshire/Portsmouth/PO6/Whats-on-in-Portsmouth/Exhibitions-and-Open-Days/231056-Black-History-Month-Multicultural-Day-at-The-National-Museum-Of-The-Royal-Navy-(Portsmouth-Historic-Dockyard).

 

Saturday 6 October. 1-2.30pm.  ‘They Gave the Crowd Plenty Fun’. Talk by Colin Babb, Content Producer at BBC World Service, writer, journalist and photographer, Colin Babb will talk about his book which explores the links between Caribbean cricket, migration, identity and presence, and the challenges cricket has faced in Britain as a prime source of pride for the Caribbean diaspora, from the start of mass immigration to Britain from the Caribbean in the 1950s. The book also combines historical and sociological perspectives with traces of humour and focuses on pivotal events and personalities. Free – booking essential (020) 8871 6388.

 

Saturday 6 October. 1-2.30pm. The Motherland Calls. Illustrated talk by Stephen Bourne about his new book The Motherland Calls which pays tribute to the black servicemen and women who volunteered to support Britain during the Second World War. Imperial War Museum (London) Lambeth Road. London,  SE1. Free.

 

Tuesday 9 October.  7pm. Africans in Britain 1500-1640. Talk by Miranda Kaufman. In 1597, ‘Edward Swarthye, alias negro’, porter to Sir Edward Wynter in Gloucestershire, testified before a  London court that he had whipped another servant, John Guye. Through the prism of this man’s life, Dr Kaufmann, who has discovered evidence of over 350 Africans in Britain between 1500 1640, will discuss how Africans came to Tudor England, what work they did  and what their legal status was. Minet Library, 52 Knatchbull Road, SE5. 020 7926 6073.

 

Tuesday 9 October. 8pm. SC-T on Radio and Television. A rare opportunity to hear BBC broadcasts of two programmes about SC-T: Great Lives and Hidden History. Some lantern slides will be shown. There will also be a performance of some of SC-T‟s Twenty-Four Negro Melodies op. 59 for solo piano. The Braithwaite Hall (Croydon Town Hall), Katharine Street. Tickets: £8 from 020 8657 7909 or at the door.

 

Wednesday 10 October. 7.30pm. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Talk by Sean Creighton. Herne Hill Society. Herne Hill United Church Hall, near top of Red Post Hill at junction of Herne Hill and Denmark Hill.

 

Saturday 13 October. 1-2.30pm. Mother Country. Stephen Bourne will give an illustrated talk about Britain's black community on the Home Front during the Second World War. Imperial War Museum (London), Lambeth Road. London,  SE1. Free.

 

Monday 15 October. 10.30am-4.30pm. Empire, Plants and People Discussion Day. A platform for discussion at the Garden Museum. With the Plant Seekers exhibition as a backdrop, we would like to begin a discussion around the links between gardens, gardening and colonial histories and their legacy today. Speakers include:

Dr Melanie Horton – who will share her research on the British Empire Marketing Board posters of the 1930s and the representation of the colonies as ‘market gardens.’

Dr Patrick Eyres, is editor-publisher of the New Arcadian Journal, which engages with the cultural politics of landscape gardens. The 50th edition (2011) explores the significance of ‘The Blackamoor’ statue in 18th-century British gardens. Dr Eyres will present his research on the symbolism of the statues.

Judy Ling Wong, UK President of Black Environment Network, with an international reputation as the pioneer in the field of ethnic participation in the built and natural environment. Judy will discuss the lasting impact of colonial histories, how they are represented in horticultural language and emotive discourse today and how this plays out in terms of participation.

Tickets £50, Museum Friends £40, Full-time students £20

Click here to book a place online.

 

Tuesday 16 October. 12pm. Songs of Freedom. Film and Q&A. Classic film, staring actor, athlete, singer and civil rights activist, Paul Robeson. Robeson plays Zinga, a black dockworker in England with a great baritone singing voice. By chance, he is informed that an ancestral medallion that he wears is proof of his lineage to African kings, and is reunited with his people. £3.50.

Ritzy Cinema, Brixton Oval, Coldharbour Lane, SW2.

 

Tuesday 16 October. 5.30pm. Embodying Race in Colonial Spanish America. Rebecca Earle (Warwick). Latin American History Seminar, IHR, Senate House, Malet St/Russell Square, London, WC1.

 

Wednesday 17 October. 2pm.  Frederick Douglass and Manchester: a 'liberating sojourn'.Talk by Natalie Zacek. Working Class Movement Library, 51 The Crescent, Salford, M5. www.wcml.org.uk/wcml/en/events/black-history-month-talk--frederick-douglass-and-manchester-a-liberating-sojourn.

 

Wednesday 17 October. 6.30-8.30pm. “Life according to Maas Roy’. Talk by Yvonne Archer, co-author and daughter, introduces this Black History Month event

in the year of Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of independence. Stanley ‘Maas Roy’ Archer left Jamaica in 1954 for England to get rich quick. After a ‘full life’ in London and National Service in Cyprus he returned to

Jeffrey Town, St Mary where he founded the Jeffrey Town Farmers’ Association which has gone on to create a community radio station and a local literacy project. Battersea Library, 265 Lavender Hill, London, SW11.

Free – booking essential (020) 8871 7466.

 

Friday 19 October. 2pm. Croydon as Coleridge-Taylor would have known it. Talk by Chris Bennett (Borough Archivist). Coulsdon Library, Brighton Road, Coulsdon, CR5.  Free activities during Croydon Black History Month. Free but need to book tickets: 0208 726 6900; libraries@croydon.gov.uk.

 

Saturday 20 October. Noon-4pm. London art in the age of jazz. African & Asian portraits & artists in London between the wars. Equiano Centre project. Part of the Bloomsbury Festival and supported by a UCL Beacon Bursary. Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, Holborn Library, 32-38 Theobalds Road, London. WC1X 8PA. Free.

 

Saturday 20 October. 2.30pm. Croydon as Coleridge-Taylor would have known it. Talk by Chris Bennett (Borough Archivist). Central Library, Croydon Clocktower, Katharine Street, Croydon, CR9.  To book tickets see 19 October.

 

Monday 22 October. 5.15pm. Locations of Global History: Manufacturing Diversity in 18th and 21^st. Maxine Berg (Warwick). Imperial & World History Seminar. IHR, Senate House, Malet St/Russell Square, London, WC1.

 

Monday 22 October.  6.30-8pm. Indians East and Indians West: Asians in the early post-Columbian Atlantic World. Talk by Cliff Pereira. Much is known about the history of Africans and Europeans in the Americas. Relatively little is known about Asians in early Post-Columbian America (after 1492). Cliff Pereira set out to research this hidden history of contact between Asians and others in the Atlantic and Northeast Brazil between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. His findings provide fascinating results, discussed in this illustrated talk. Tooting Library. 75 Mitcham Road, SW17. Free – booking essential (020) 8871 7175.

 

Monday 22 October. 7pm. The Value of Multiculture. Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture by Professor Paul Gilroy. National Union of Journalists, Black History Month celebration. Thomson Reuters, Canary Wharf, London,  E14. All welcome. Registrations for this lecture should be send to lenac@nuj.org.uk.

 

Tuesday 23 October. Indian Ornithology, British Botany and Allan Octavian Hume (1829-1912): the Scientific Legacy of a Founder of the Indian National Congress. One day event at Natural History Museum,

Cromwell Road, London, SW7. For details see www.history.ac.uk/events/event/4366.

 

Wednesday 24 October. 6.30-8pm. John Archer and the Black Atlantic. Talk  by Sean Creighton.  Through his support for Pan Africanist black rights, John Archer, Battersea’s Mayor (1913-14), had many contacts around the Black Atlantic world of Africa, the West Indies and the United States. Sean Creighton, a historian of Wandsworth and of British Black History, will give an illustrated talk

about these links. Putney Library, 5/7 Disraeli Road,

SW15. Free – booking essential (020) 8871 7090

 

Thursday 25 October. 9am-4pm. Entrepreneurial Legacies of the Notting Hill Carnival: A one day symposium. Despite attracting an audience of over 2 million and being dubbed Europe’s largest street party, the Notting Hill Carnival, like other Caribbean carnivals staged throughout the world, has been plagued by financial difficulties and a steady stream of criticism in the media arising from festival organizers’ alleged lack of entrepreneurial and organizational skills. This type of discourse is also replicated within academic literature.
This symposium challenges the current consensus discourse both in popular media and within academia which suggests that the cultural entrepreneurs behind the Notting Hill Carnival, whilst being individuals of great creativity, lack entrepreneurial ability. It seeks to engage a range of cultural entrepreneurs including sound systems, steel bands, calypso singers, costume designers and event organizers to paint a picture of an innovative, highly sophisticated group of entrepreneurs who despite access to limited resources has managed to create a complex cultural production system.
Contact: Please email Nicole Ferdinand at Nicole.Ferdinand@kcl.ac.uk to book your place and to receive updates on the symposium. Location: King' s College London. See www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/cmci/eventrecords/carnival.aspx for more.

 

Saturday 27 October. From Africa to the White House: A journey of Resistance, Triumph and Spirituals. Tayo Aluko (of Call Mr Robeson) presents a musically illustrated talk with him singing  exploring African pre-slavery history, Africans' resistance to white domination over the centuries, and their eventual triumph (symbolically at least) with the election and inauguration of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States. Also features "Reshape While Damp" by Naomi Paul. Crossroads Women's Centre, London.

 

Monday 29 October. 5.15pm. 'The Eye of History': the India Office Records, the Hakluyt Society, and the fantasy of the all-seeing imperial archive. Peter Mitchell (Queen Mary, University of London).

Colonial / Postcolonial New Researchers' Workshop in Imperial & World History Seminar, IHR, Senate House, Malet St/Russell Square, London, WC1.

 

Monday 29 October 6.30-8.30pm. A Pan-African Embassy: The WASU and Self-Government. Talk by Dr Hakim Adi. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the

call for self-government for Britain’s West African colonies made from the heart of London by the  members of the West African Students’ Union (WASU). To mark this anniversary Dr Hakim Adi will talk about

the significance of the WASU, explain the importance of the WASU Project and show excerpts from his new documentary, which contains interviews with former WASU members and other West Africans who were

in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s. Free – booking essential (020) 8871 7466

 

Wednesday 31 October. 5.15pm. How To Make Friends and Corrupt People: The Confederate Infiltration of Parliament during the American Civil War, 1861-1865. Dr Amanda Foreman. 9th History of Parliament Lecture at Portcullis House, Westminster. Entry by invitation only. For an invitation please contact pseaward@histparl.ac.uk’

 

Wednesday 31 October 6.30-8.30pm. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: life and legacy. Kwaku, a music industry and history consultant, will give an audio-visual

died 100 years ago, with an opportunity to hear some of his music. Putney Library, 5/7 Disraeli Road, London, SW15. Free - booking essential.  (020) 8871 7090.

 

Tuesday 30 October. 6-9pm. Harrow African/Black History Month event marking the 25th anniversary of the introduction Black History Month in Britain and Labour Party’s Black Section’s success with the election of 4 African and Asian MPs in 1987. Panel: Ansel Wong (London Strategic Policy Unit officer who helped introduce BHM), Marc Wadsworth and Roger McKenzie (Black Sections executives who helped with the election of the first 3 African British MPs). Chair: Kwaku (Akoben Awards & TAOBQ (The African Or Black Question) co-ordinator). Presented by WHEAT MST in association with Akoben Awards. There will be books on sale. Free. wheatsmst@gmail.com, www.25yearson.eventbrite.com
Harrow Civic Centre, Station Road, Harrow, HA1 2XY

 

Wednesday 31 October 31. 2.30-4pm. Remembering Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Streatham Library, Streatham High Rd. This is primarily for Lambeth schools. Led by Kwaku. (Note 2)

 

Wednesday 31 October. 6.30-8.30pm. Remembering Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Talk by Kwaku. Putney Library, 5-7 Disraeli Road, SW15 2DR. 020 8871 7090. (Note 1)