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Black People's Contributions to British Society:

A Song From the Margins

by Arthur Dion Hanna Jr.

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Dion Hanna is a Bahamian legal scholar, lecturer, researcher and community activist based in the UK.
 

Summary: This paper was presented by Arthur Dion Hanna Jr. to the City Retreat and The Racial Equality Centre's Evening of Celebration, Education and Empowerment, by the People of Leicester, for the People of Leicester. Sunday, 30 October, 2016

Salaam in Afrikadesta.

It is my honour and privilege to be able to speak to the contributions of our ancestors to British Society. Traditionally British society has recognized and traced the Black presence in Britain only as far back in time as post World War II migration to Britain. There is a virtual deafening silence about Black contributions to British society and a cognitive dissonance1  which has evoked an historical amnesia about the origins of racial classifications and colonial and imperial exploitation of human beings from Afrika, Asia and the Caribbean in a nightmare vortex in which Black people's contributions have been made virtually invisible and never invoked in the popular imagination of what it means to be British. Rather, Black peoples have always found themselves on the margins of British society as “the other”. As we were advised some time ago, there ain't no Black in the Union Jack2
.
This is underscored by a nefarious process of everyday racism which Philomena Essed defines as a process in which:

“(a) socialized racist notions are integrated into meanings that make practices immediately definable and manageable,

(b) practices with racist implications become in themselves familiar and repetitive, and

(c) underlying racial and ethnic relations are actualized and reinforced through these routine or familiar practices in everyday situations”3.

1“Cognitive dissonance can be defined as a profound disorientation that occurs when our foundational modes of thinking are directly challenged ... or our lived experience fails to conform to deeply ingrained beliefs and assumptions” Alexander-Floyd N (2008): “Critical race pedagogy: teaching about race and racism through legal learning strategies‟. Political Science & Politics, vol 41 (1), pp 183– 188;

2 Paul Gilroy (1992): There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack; Routledge; London

3 Essed, P (1991). Understanding everyday racism: an interdisciplinary theory. California: Sage

As pointed out by Stuart Hall:

“The black experience’, as a singular and unifying framework based on the building up of identity across ethnic and cultural difference between the different communities, became ‘hegemonic’ over other ethnic/ racial identities—though the latter did not, of course, disappear. Culturally, this analysis formulated itself in terms of a critique of the way blacks were positioned as the unspoken and invisible ‘other’ of predominantly white aesthetic and cultural discourses. This analysis was predicated on the marginalization of the black experience in British culture; not fortuitously occurring at the margins, but placed, positioned at the margins, as the consequence of a set of quite specific political and cultural practices which regulated, governed and ‘normalized’ the representational and discursive spaces of English society”4.
.
So, tonight from the margins we explore the undeniable Black presence and contributions to British civilization which spans not only centuries but many millenia. Today there would be no humans in Britain were it not for the original Black mother of all, the oldest human being known, who spread her seed from the fertile garden of ancient Ethiopia across the planet. The original migrants to Britain were undoubtedly descendants of the Afrikan mother of all 5. It was they who built Stonehenge 6  and their presence predates more recent migration from Europe of the Saxons, Angles, Picts, Danes and Vikings, from which popular British white historical imagination traces its ancestral roots7
.
Kathleen Chater points out that Black people have lived in Britain for

4 Stuart Hall (1988): “New Ethnicities” In ICA Documents 7: Black Film British Cinema; Kobena Mercer (ed)

5<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050223122209.htm>;  http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20141127-
lucy-fossil-revealed-our-origins>; <https://iho.asu.edu/about/lucys-story>

6 <http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=2225>
<http://www.messagetoeagle.com/african-stonehenge-extraordinary-stone-circles-of-enegambia-who-were-theirunknown-builders/>;  http://globaloriginalheritagerevival.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/blacks-people- tonehengebuilders.html>; Ahmed Ali and Ibrahim Ali, The Black Celts: an Ancient African Civilization in Ireland and Britain (Cardiff, 1992).

7 <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=English>; Oppenheimer, S. (2006). The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story. London: Constable and Robinson; Andrew Tyrrell, Corpus Saxon in Social Identity in Early Medieval Britain by Andrew Tyrrell and William O. Frazer (London: Leicester University Press. 2000); Kumar, Krishan (2003). The Making of English National Identity. Cambridge University Press 

many centuries from the time of the Roman invasions and perhaps before. African soldiers serving in the Roman army were stationed at Hadrian's Wall during the 2nd century AD during the reign of Emperor Septimus Severus, the Afrikan emperor born in Libya8. Perhaps, if it were not for their presence, what is now known as England would be part of greater Scotland because it was these influential Afrikan soldiers that kept the so called Scottish barbarians out of England. So you can see I am not being flippant when I suggest that were it not for the Afrikan footprints in the sands of historical time there would not be an England or indeed a Britain.

Indeed, the Black presence in Britain and the contributions they made to British society is undeniable, with their bones laying in shallow British graves bearing testimony to their presence, as those of "Cornelius a Blackamoor" whose burial on 2nd March 1593 was recorded in the parish register at St Margaret's Church in Lee and is the earliest recorded Black presence in medieval England 9.

However, the graves of Black people in Britain can be found across the country such as the Kemetan inspired obelisk grave of Rasselas Morjan who was born at Macadi Ethiopia and who died at Wanlip in August 183910. Similarly, in Nottingham can be found the grave in St. Mary's graveyard of George John Scipio Africanus, an enslaved Afrikan captured in Sierra Leone in 1763 who was brought to Wolverhampton, England as a child but later, after the death of his slave master, migrated to Nottingham where he commenced an Employment Agency business, which thrived until his death in 1834. A green memorial plaque in memory of Africanus, “Nottingham’s First black
entrepreneur”, has been erected at his grave site. Sukhdev Sandhu indicates that in the 12th century Black people lived in England in small numbers but that it was empire that caused their

8 Charmaine Simpson (2012): Fifteen Things You Do Not Know About the History of Black People in Britain before 1948 <http://www.blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15factsaboutblacklondonersbefore1948/>; Ann Wuyts: "Evidence of 'upper class' Africans living in Roman York", The Independent, 2 March 2010; <http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-andevents/releases/PR270747.aspx>; Lorraine White (1984): The History of Blacks in Britain: From Slavery to Rebellion <http://www.socialistalternative.org/panther-black-rebellion/history-blacks-britain-slavery-rebellion/>

9 Charmaine Simpson (2012): Fifteen Things You Do Not Know About the History of Black People in Britain before 1948. <http://www.blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15factsaboutblacklondonersbefore1948/>

10<https://www.stnicholascenter.org/galleries/gazetteer/1317/3/>;  http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/memorial-to-anafrican-slave-is-unusual-tribute/story-29671184-detail/story.html>

numbers to expand exponentially in the 17th and 18th centuries 11. However, during the 16th century there was an African presence in Britain and Black people were considered numerous enough in Tudor towns and cities to draw the attention of the British monarchy, as evidenced by two letters signed by Elizabeth I in July 1596, which proposed the enslavement of these Africans and that they be exchanged for white English prisoners held in captivity by the Spanish and Portuguese 12.

There is considerable literary reference to this Black presence13. Indeed, there was a Black presence in the Tudor court, such as Catalina de Cardones, who traveled to England in 1501 with Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s wife and queen and served her for some 26 years 14.

John Blanke, who was known as the “blacke trumpeter”, was employed by Henry VII and Henry VIII from 1506–12. Kathleen Chater indicates that he had a prominent role in the Westminster Tournament celebrations of 1511 staged to commemorate the birth of Prince Henry Duke of Cornwall, the son of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII and that Blanke appears twice on the Westminster Tournament Roll, a contemporary manuscript that shows the procession to and from Westminster Abbey 15.

Chater points out that Elizabeth I also had at least one African in her personal entourage – “a Blackamoore boy”, who is mentioned in a warrant dated 14 April 1574. The warrant states that the queen

11 Kathleen Chater: http://www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/black_history.html

12 Emma Mason (2012): “The Missing Tudors: black people in 16th-century England” In BBC History Magazine July 2012 <http://www.historyextra.com/feature/missing-tudors-black-people-16th-century-england>; Shyllon F. (1977): Black People in Britain 1555-1833; Oxford University Press, London; Fryer, P. (1984): Staying Power – The History of Black People in Britain. Pluto Press, London

13 Lorraine White (1984): The History of Blacks in Britain: From Slavery to Rebellion <http://www.socialistalternative.org/panther-black-rebellion/history-blacks-britain-slavery-rebellion/>

14 Emma Mason (2012): “The Missing Tudors: black people in 16th-century England” In BBC History Magazine July 2012 <http://www.historyextra.com/feature/missing-tudors-black-people-16th-century-england>

15 Ibid.

ordered the clothes-maker Henry Henre to make the African boy a “garcon coat… of white taphata cutt and lyned…striped with gold and silver with buckeram bayes…knitted stockings [and] white shoes”16.

Kathleen Chater contends that the fact that Africans were not just living in Tudor parishes but were employed inside the royal court helps us to understand that they were part of the anatomy of that
society but that, perceptions of English identity are distorted by a revisionist image of Tudor England often portrayed as being all white 17.

Lorraine White points out that, by the early eighteenth century, Britain had emerged as the biggest and most prosperous slave trading nation in the world and the number one slave carrier for European countries 18. The immense wealth that was reaped from the colonial misadventure and the enslavement of human beings fueled the industrial and economic development of European nations including Britain during this era and has formed the foundations of capitalism and contemporary British society, as has been demonstrated in the momentous works of Dr Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery 19 and From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, 1492-1969; 20.

White contends that the fabulous wealth generated by slavery and the trading system which thrived around it provided the capital for the development of industry and commerce, which laid the foundations for the birth of modern capitalism. She asserts that the fact that the wealth of the Western countries was built on the backs of Black slave labour is a point many historians seem to conveniently forget or ignore 21. She further points out that the development of racism in its

16 This young man was employed until at least the following April, when a further warrant granted this “littel black a More” another set of fine clothing. Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Lorraine White (1984): The History of Blacks in Britain: From Slavery to Rebellion <http://www.socialistalternative.org/panther-black-rebellion/history-blacks-britain-slavery-rebellion/>

19 Eric Williams (1944): Capitalism and Slavery; University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill

20 Eric Williams (1970): From Columbus to Castro – The History of the Caribbean , 1492-1969; Harper & Row, New York

21 Lorraine White (1984): The History of Blacks in Britain: From Slavery to Rebellion
<http://www.socialistalternative.org/panther-black-rebellion/history-blacks-britain-slavery-rebellion/>.

modern sense also traces its origins to the role slavery played in the rise of capitalism and that it was during this period that all kinds of pseudo-scientific theories were put forward to justify the brutalities of slavery. The use of science to legitimize and justify slavery paved the way for racism to become a lasting tool of capitalist exploitation 22.

Another product of British Imperialism was a South Asian presence in Britain from at least the 19th century. In the middle of the 19th century Ayahs, who were employed as attendants to English families on the long journey to and from India, were often abandoned on arrival in England and left to their own devices, subsequently being employed as Nannies 23. Similarly, many Indian seamen, referred to as “Lascars” often settled in England as did many students and wealthy princes 24.

From the era of the British “Raj” this significant South Asian presence has had a profound impact on British society, with Dadabhai Naoroji becoming the first Indian elected to parliament in 1892 and Shapurji Saklatvala, a strident trade unionist, anti imperialist and anti fascist, who won a seat for the Labour Party in Battersea, a seat he later held for the Communist Party and as co- founder of the Workers Welfare League in India was arrested and jailed during the 1926 General Strike following a speech supporting striking miners. Others, such as Mulk Raj Anand and Mahatma Gandhi have had a significant impact in English literature, political, social and philosophical thought 25.

After the First World War, when thousands of Black soldiers from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean volunteered to join the British army, there was a growing Black presence in Britain and although many were sent back after the war, significant numbers, mainly seafarers, settled in

22 Ibid.

23 “Black History Month: Ayahs at Sea” In the Women's History Network Blog <http://womenshistorynetwork.org/blog/? p=887>

24 Shompa Lahiri (2013): Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity, 1880-1930; Routledge, Abingdon and New York

25 Mike Squires (1990): Saklatvala: Political Biography. London: Lawrence and Wishart, London; Marc Wadsworth (1998): Comrade Sak: A Political Biography; Peepal Tree, Leeds; “Celebrating the Indian Presence in Britain” In The Hindu, November 26, 2011; Dadabhai Naoroji Biography <http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/dadabhainaoroji.html>

the port towns of London, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow and Hull 26. Lorraine White indicates that, despite their relatively small numbers, many of these early Black settlers were confronted with discrimination and racist violence, as in 1918 when Charles Wooton was murdered by a white mob in Liverpool. This incident provoked an uprising of Blacks in almost all areas where they had settled and set a pattern of resistance that was to characterize the Black experience in this country right up to the present day 27.

The rebuilding of Britain’s shattered economy after the Second World War created a massive demand for labor and there was active recruitment particularly of Caribbean peoples to help sustain the survival of British society whose manpower had been significantly depleted by the savage brutality of the tribal conflict with Germany and its allies Italy and Japan. One cannot overstate the crucial role of Caribbean and South Asian nurses, bus drivers, train operators, textile workers, workers in industrial plants, who fueled the revival of post war Britain 28 and this early wave of migration is poignantly portrayed in “The Leicester Windrush Project” which attempts to document the early experiences of Black migrants from the Caribbean to Leicester 29.

More significant has been the contribution of Black struggles to the shaping of British education in post war Britain and the integral role education played in the emergence of Black British identities 30. In this regard, it has been pointed out that Britain's Black intellectual traditions are powerful and longstanding, despite the fact that this is often missed or ignored by the white western academic world 31.

26 Lorraine White (1984): The History of Blacks in Britain: From Slavery to Rebellion
<http://www.socialistalternative.org/panther-black-rebellion/history-blacks-britain-slavery-rebellion/>.

27 Ibid.;

28 Post 1947 Migration to the UK From India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka <http://www.strikingwomen.org/module/map-major-south-asian-migration-flows/post-1947-migration-uk-india-bangladesh-pakistan-and>; Shyllon F. (1977): Fryer, P. (1984): Staying Power – The History of Black People in Britain. Pluto Press, London

29 “Documentary Exploring the Caribbean Community's Heritage in Leicester Premiered Tomorrow” In Leicester Mercury,

October 30, 2015

30 Paul Warmington (2014): Black British Intellectuals and Education; Routledge, London and New York

31 Ibid.

Black intellectuals have long figured in British life, such as Olaudah Equiano who was one of the “Sons of Africa” a group of 12 Black men who campaigned for abolition 32. Similarly, Willam Cuffay, a Black tailor from London, was one of the leaders and martyrs of the Chartist movement, the first mass political movement of the British working class 33. It has been indicated that, by the early twentieth century, a “spread of organized black political activity” was evident, including Harold Moody's League of Coloured Peoples, Lapido Solanke's West African Students Union and the first incarnation of the Indian Workers Association 34.

During this era, Panafrikan and anticolonial movements were driven by the vibrancy of figures such as George Padmore and Amy Ashwood Garvey produced a formidable Black British intelligentsia, with primary focus on anti racism, African and Asian solidarity, community education and the welfare of young people and families 35. In 1913, John Richard Archer became first Black Mayor London, when he was elected as Mayor of Battersea 36.

Paul Warmington indicates that, in the post war era, the early stands taken by the Black educational movements of the 1960's and early 1970's against busing, school exclusions and the placement of Black children for the educationally subnormal (ESN Schools) fed into the radical structural analyses of British schooling that, in the work of educators such as Bernard Coard, Farrukh Dhondy, Stella Dadzie and Gus John drew upon experiences of teaching in British schools, Marxist analyses of education in capitalism and the radicalism emerging from the Black Atlantic 37.

Warmington further indicates that, in the 1980's Hazel Carby, Paul Gilroy and “the new generation” of Black British theorists inspired by

32 Ibid.

33 Charmaine Simpson (2012): Fifteen Things You Do Not Know About the History of Black People in Britain before 1948 <http://www.blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15factsaboutblacklondonersbefore1948/>

34 Paul Warmington (2014): Black British Intellectuals and Education; Routledge, London and New York;

35 Ibid.

36 Charmaine Simpson (2012): Fifteen Things You Do Not Know About the History of Black People in Britain before 1948 <http://www.blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15factsaboutblacklondonersbefore1948/>

37 Paul Warmington (2014): Black British Intellectuals and Education; Routledge, London and New York;

Stuart Hall imagined Black British youth forming active opposition to both the authoritarian dimensions of schooling and the distractions offered “by facile forms of multiculturalism”38.

He points out that from the late 1980's Stuart Halls rethinking of articulation between race, class and gender influenced the educational writing of such Black scholars as Safia Mirza, whose work countered earlier accounts of the racialized processes of schooling and Tariq Madood who challenged dominant modes of political Blackness and their reliance on both subcultural and Marxist analytical frameworks 39.

Warmington indicates that, crucially, Black public intellectuals are not and have never been confined to the academy and that the history of Black education also incorporates the works of Bookshops, Art Groups and Publishers such as Bogle L'Ouverture and New Beacon, labour and community organizations such as the Indian Workers Association and the Asian Youth Movements, Black women's groups including Southall Black Sisters and the Organization of Women of Asian and African Descent (OWAAD) and both Black and Multiracial anti racist groups, such as the Black Parents Movement (BPM) and the National Association for Multiracial Education 40.

Black Freedom fighters for workers' rights and against racist injustice, such as Jayaben Desai 41 the bold heroine who led the epic Grunwick worker dispute; Martha Osamor 42, who led the campaign against police abuse in the Broadwater Farm community and Bill Morris, the first Black leader of a major British trade union and President of the TUC, have blazed a path for workers rights and social justice. Here in Leicester, the Raddles Book Shop Collective stood as a cultural beacon in the East and West Midlands and beyond and provided a

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 The Grunwick Dispute <http://www.striking-women.org/module/striking-out/grunwick-dispute>

42 Harmit Athwal and Jenny Bourne (2015): Martha Osamor: Unsung Hero of Britain's Black Struggle; Institute of Race relations <http://www.irr.org.uk/news/martha-osamor-unsung-hero-of-britains-black-struggle/>; Her daughter has followed her epic trailblazing path and is the Labour candidate to parliament for the constitutiency of Edmond (Ashley Cowburn (2015): “Who is This Black Woman?: Kate Osamor on Her Path to Parliament” In New Statesman 12 March 2015)

dynamic cultural epicentre for PanAfrikan consciousness of empowerment and freedom. Our own Iris Lightfoote, the Chief Executive of The Racial Equality Centre, has been a champion for social justice and racial equality, over the past 30 or so years and there are so many others that I could sing their names all night and only scratch the surface, including brother Oliver Wenham better known as Wolde Selassie, who, besides being a trade union leader, more crucially played a critical role in ensuring the the flame of Afrikan culture awareness, consciousness and freedom was kept
burning, not only in Leicester but across England.

Others such as Surrinder Sharma, the Chair of The Racial Equality Centre Leicester and Priya Thamotheram of the Highfields Centre who struggled tirelessly, to ensure racial and social justice, often in the face of official City Council intransigence, have also brought their rich traditions of social activism and campaigning for equality of opportunity to join this chorus from the margins of Leicester, often calling into question the illusion of a so called multicultural society.

There are so many others that I could mention but my time for making this presentation is limited so I will have to conclude by saying that it is the ordinary everyday Black man and woman, who struggle, in their day to day lived experiences, to survive the ravages of racism, social injustice and capitalist greed, who are the real heroes and whose shining light of struggle and sacrifice continues to enlighten and uplift British society from the sordid gutters of its ignoble rancid history of racism and colonial domination and oppression.

It is their song of freedom and justice from the margins; our history and herstory, that we must celebrate tonight and begin to make a record of, as is beginning to be done by the Serendipity Project. It is a song from the margins of a British society which owes much, if not all, of its prosperity to the struggles and sacrifices of our ancestors and it demands Freedom and just reparation for 500 years of injustice and oppression at Home and Abroad. There is no question about it, Reparations are a must! 

In closing, I quote two passages which poignantly describe this beautiful chorus from the margins, one from Empress Maya Angelou and the other from the Rt. Hon. Robert Nesta Marley because they both encapsulate the essence of what it means to be Black in Britain and the hopes and aspirations of our people at Home and Abroad:

“But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom 43”.

“Old Pirates Yes They Rob I
Sold I to the Merchant ships
Minutes after They took I
From the Bottomless Pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We Forward in this Generation Triumphantly
Won't You help to Sing
These Songs of Freedom
Cause All I ever have
Redemption Songs 44.”

43 Maya Angelou (1983) “Caged Bird” In Shaker Why Don't You Sing; Maya Angelou. Random House
 

44 Rt. Hon. Robert Nesta Marley (1980): “Redemption Song” In Uprising; Island def Jam Music Group
 

Let us continue to sing our song of freedom from the margins of British society as we continue to strive for equality of opportunity for all and an end to racial oppression and injustice. As intoned in the Black National Anthem written by a diasporan Afrikan Bahamian descendant, James Weldon Johnson, “Lift every voice and Sing til Earth and Heaven ring with the harmonies of liberty”45.

A Luta Continua!
Forwards Ever Backwards Never!
Free the Land!

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45 <https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/lift-every-voice-and-sing>