All three of the Historycal Roots team recently attended a ‘What’s Happening In Black British History?’ event hosted by Huddersfield University.
There was a packed programme of talks throughout the day and one of the speakers (Testament, writer of ‘Black Men Walking’) posed the question ‘How long? How long does there have to be a Black presence in Britain before Black people are simply accepted as ‘people’ without having to explain or justify their presence and facing a battle to be accepted?’
A number of the presentations were relevant to this question as they illustrated that Black people have been a sizeable part of the British community for centuries:
- in regular regiments of the British Army since the 1700s (John Ellis, Historian and Teacher);
- as members of the Yorkshire community dating back several centuries (Audrey Dewjee, Independent Historian);
- as prisoners of war held at Porchester Castle between 1793 and 1814 (Abigail Coppins (Curator).
Of course it would have been possible to have sessions illustrating a Black presence in Roman and even pre-Roman times (maybe next time).
During a presentation delivered by Milton Brown (University of Huddersfield and Kirklees Local TV), one of the pre-recorded vox pop interviews featured a Black woman with a heavy Yorkshire accent saying that whenever she goes into a meeting the first question is always ‘where are you from?’. In a 45 year career in the civil service during which I must have attended thousands of meetings I don’t think I was ever asked that question. As a white male it was no doubt considered redundant but why does a Black person need to be ‘from’ anywhere? The question implies: you don’t belong here, you are not one of us, you must be from somewhere else.
The whole day was thought provoking and interesting and it was followed by a small party to mark the opening of an exhibition: ‘Let’s Play Vinyl’.
The ‘how long does it take?’question assumed a more personal perspective as two of us made our way from the hotel to Huddersfield station the following day. A passenger in a passing car hurled random racist abuse in our direction before speeding off. Was it the mix of Black and White that he found so offensive? We’ll never know as he didn’t stop to explain his ‘thought’ processes.
‘How long?’ indeed.