Black women in Britain

Black Cultural Archives

Black Cultural Archives

Sara Bonetta Forbes (1987) by Viking booksBlack Cultural Archives

Black women in Britain

Black women have been part of British history for centuries. Our lives have embodied the qualities of courage, intelligence and independence; we have built communities, raised families, and against often overwhelming odds, we have carved out identities as pioneers, activists and artists. Yet for all this achievement, our presence has too often been poorly documented. Our participation in British society has often become obscured, lost to the shadows of time. Whilst retrieving the lives of ordinary people from history is always tricky, scholars are continuously uncovering new leads. Projects across the UK send volunteers to sift through parish records, retrieving information until now unexamined. Inscribing these women into the national consciousness requires thorough research but also the awareness and participation of a keen, committed and creative general public – people who are willing and motivated to piece the clues together. This exhibition features a diverse selection of women, inspired by and drawing on some of the strengths of Black Cultural Archives’ collection. Many more stories have yet to be rediscovered and told. Each life represented here has, consciously or unconsciously, paved the way for Black women of today. These stories can teach us about past experience, and inspire us as we shape our future. By retrieving and re-imagining them,we honour this history so vitally represented. A note on the text: Throughout this exhibition and Black Cultural Archives’ public programme the word ‘Black’ is used interchangeably with ‘African’ to refer to people of African origin.

Ivory Bangle lady (2016) by Yorkshire museumBlack Cultural Archives

Ivory Bangle Lady

In 1901 the ancient grave of a woman was discovered in York. Over a hundred years later, tests revealed her North African origin and established her as the earliest proven evidence of a Black woman in the British Isles.The contents of her grave indicated she was a woman of means and high social status. The engraving ‘Hail Sister May You Live in God’ found at the site, suggests a Christian burial. Images of the ‘reconstructed’ face of a woman of African descent who lived in York during the fourth century ADI Image Public domain

Newspaper excerpt regarding 'Caelia' (1728-08-08) by The Post BoyBlack Cultural Archives

Celia

Although we only have her name, Celia represents some of the many women who took it upon themselves to chase freedom and disappear into the growing Black communities throughout Britain.
Although historians are unable to give precise figures on the size of the Black communities, the growing numbers led to the establishment of the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor in 1786, and an ill-fated scheme to repatriate a number of Black people to Sierra Leone.

Phillis Wheatley (1773) by Black Cultural ArchivesBlack Cultural Archives

Phillis Wheatley
(1753-1784)

Born in Senegambia, she was taken aged seven aboard a ship, The Phillis, to the USA and sold to the Wheatleys of Boston. They encouraged her literary talent, and at just 20, she became the second African poet to publish a book, and the first published African woman in Britain and America. Having travelled to England in 1773 with her master’s son, she is said to have become ‘the most famous African woman on Earth’. There, aristocratic patrons supported the publication of her work, and she had an audience with the Lord Mayor of London.
The quality of her writing – contemporary evidence that an enslaved woman was capable of intellectual originality –transformed the anti-slavery movement.

Mary Seacole (1990) by Black Cultural ArchivesBlack Cultural Archives

Mary Seacole

Born in nineteenth-century Jamaica to a Black free woman and a Scottish army officer, Seacole enjoyed social status without basic civil rights. Yet remarkably she travelled more than most women of her time. During the Crimean War (1853–56) she self-funded her trip to Balaclava, Ukraine, where she nursed beleaguered and wounded British soldiers. It was Seacole, not Florence Nightingale, who contemporary newspapers hailed as the mother of British soldiers. But after her death Seacole’s story fell into obscurity until the 1990s, when a campaign was launched to reinstate her remarkable history into the national consciousness.

Kathleen Wrsama (1980) by Black Cultural ArchivesBlack Cultural Archives

Kathleen Wrasama

Taken from Ethiopia as a child, Kathleen came to England in 1917. After traumatic experiences in children’s homes in Yorkshire she ran away and found work as a farm labourer. During the 1930s she moved to London and worked as an extra in films with Paul Robeson, and later established a Black seaman’s mission in Stepney with her husband. She was a founder member of the Stepney Coloured Peoples Association, an organisation committed to improving community relations, education and housing for Black people in the local area.

Claudia Jones by Claudia Jones Memorial CommitteeBlack Cultural Archives

Claudia Jones

Born in Trinidad, Jones was raised in New York where poverty led to her childhood tuberculosis. She joined the Young Communists, working as a journalist where she earned her reputation as a pioneering feminist. Expelled from the USA under McCarthy she made a home in London where she founded the influential West Indian Gazette and, following the murder of Kelso Cochrane, launched the first indoor carnival to promote community harmony.

Doris Morris (2002) by Black Cultural ArchivesBlack Cultural Archives

Doris Morris

Leaving Jamaica in 1956 with a sense of adventure, upon arrival in England Doris found work as seamstress, and then as a childminder. She joined the Decca Radar company in Battersea in 1970, soon becoming a shop steward for the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (later forming part of UNITE), where her leadership and talent for public speaking led to her taking a more senior role as convenor. Doris is the mother of activist Olive Morris.

Connie Mark (1990) by Black Cultural ArchivesBlack Cultural Archives

Connie Mark

Connie joined the British Army in 1943 at the young age of 19, and served in Jamaica as part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). On coming to Britain, Connie became a driving force within the Black community, raising the profile of the contribution women had made to the war effort, and becoming Chair of the Friends of Mary Seacole organization. She was also an active member of the West Indian Ex-Servicemen and Women’s Association and of the West Indian Standing Conference.

Queen Mother Moore (1990) by Black Cultural ArchivesBlack Cultural Archives

Queen Mother Moore

This exhibition is dedicated to Queen Mother Moore, the inspirational woman who first motivated Len Garrison in his mission to establish Black Cultural Archives, and to all women who have made, and continue to make a difference.

Credits: Story

For Black women in Britain today, domestic and political lives have become inseparable. Now, more than ever, the histories of struggle and resistance, creativity and advancement are intertwined across time as part of a continuum of positive change.

Yet this continuum has gaps: the stories of many Black women are still missing from history. There remains a need to recover, preserve and share their stories,and liberate lives from the shadows of obscurity.

The journey of re-imagining continues for us all.

Original Curators 2014 Hannah Ishmael and Doreen Foster

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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