‘The Best Black History Conference Ever’

In Memory of Marika Sherwood (1937 – 2025)

By Audrey Dewjee, 26^th February 2025

My first introduction to Marika Sherwood was at a 2-day conference held in Nottingham in 1993. I attended along with two friends, my husband and our 5-year-old son.

During a recent phone conversation with Lucy MacKeith, another pioneer of Black History research, Lucy asked me, ‘Do you remember the best Black History conference ever?’ and I knew exactly which one she was referring to. The conference took place on the weekend of 16^th and 17^th October 1993 and it truly deserves to be remembered. It was organised by the Association for the Study of African, Caribbean and Asian Culture and History in Britain or ASACACHIB (thankfully, this long title was subsequently changed to BASA, the Black and Asian Studies Association) and, according to Hakim Adi’s report on the conference in ASACACHIB Newsletter No. 8, ‘Marika Sherwood singlehandedly organised the event.’

At the time I hadn’t yet joined ASACACHIB, so I was largely unaware of who were its members, but I remember meeting Marika, Hakim Adi and Sean Creighton in Nottingham.

The Conference, dedicated to the memory of Peter Blackman^[1]Peter Blackman (1909-1993)  https://irr.org.uk/article/restoring-peter-blackman/ who had died the previous August, was entitled ‘Black Peoples in Britain: Local Histories’. A mix of academic and community speakers made presentations on the history of a wide variety of locations including Wellingborough, Northampton, Bute Town (Cardiff), Devon, Kent, Bristol, Nottingham, Liverpool, Tyneside, Birmingham, and several different areas of London.

Lucy MacKeith was one of the presenters. Her topic, ‘Black Peoples in Devon – 17^th to 19^th Centuries’ was wide ranging. It included local connections with the trade in enslaved Africans and sugar production, as well as stories of Africans who turned up in the county such as Olaudah Equiano, and Peter Courpon, servant of a French Officer who was a prisoner-of-war. Peter married a local girl in Moretonhampstead in 1807. Ten years later, Lucy published a book about her findings entitled, ‘Local Black History: A Beginning in Devon. (2003)’.^[2]You can read the book online at https://www.tellingourstoriesdevon.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2003/01/Local-Black-History-a-beginning-in-Devon.pdf

Two presentations at the conference particularly stuck in my memory. In the first, ‘In Search of Mr. McKenzie,’ Isha McKenzie-Mavinga and Thelma Perkins described their search for information about the life of their father about whom they knew very little. As the sisters had grown up in children’s homes with only white companions and carers, their search also involved a discovery of their Black History and heritage. Attendees were able to buy their resulting book.

In the second, speakers from Butetown History Project, Cardiff, were part of a presentation on ‘Black History as a Community Resource.’ Mrs. Watkins gave a brief but vivid talk about her childhood in Butetown, also known as ‘Tiger Bay.’ She remembered with affection how children of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds went to school together, played together and celebrated each other’s religious festivals. Her talk was complemented by Neil Sinclair reading an extract from his newly published book, ‘The Tiger Bay Story’.

Pip Jones spoke about Africans in Bristol in the 18^th century, and her work along with Rita Yousef also resulted in a book, published in 1994. (See below for a full list of all the speakers and the titles of their presentations.) Presumably, the papers from this conference are archived somewhere. It would be great if they could be published online as a record of all the fantastic work that had been done around the country by 1993.

Anna Davin, in a long review published in History Workshop Journal, reported that,

[The conference] brought together, some two hundred teachers, students, local historians, activists and a few academics who were of all ages between teens and sixties, and of various origins….Many speakers, from both platform and floor, stressed the need to bring black history into the classroom…

As at all the best conferences, discussions extended into every break and beyond. At the back of the hall on display panels you could study background material related to the talks: rare photographs (of John Archer’s wedding, for instance), programmes and documents from important occasions like the London Pan-African Conference of 1900; maps with pins where traces of the Black Presence had been identified; the mock-up for the Wellingborough life-history pamphlet; Tiger Bay photographs and so on. There were also excellent bookstalls.^[3]History Workshop Journal, vol 13, issue 1, Spring 1994, pp.246-250.

There were three bookstalls – provided by Sean Creighton of Agenda Services, George Fisher of Ragga-Muffins, and the wonderful Raddle Bookshop that was based in Berners Street, Leicester.^[4]There is a great blog about Raddle Bookshop at  https://akinsankofa.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/raddle-books/ Having the bookstalls present enabled participants to take away resources to add to their growing knowledge. My friends and I bought as many books as we could afford.

Marika put together the wonderful variety of presentations covering many areas of the country and brought together enthusiasts from many different fields. She selected a brilliant partner in Nottingham – Len Garrison, whose input helped to make the weekend even more special. At the time Len was director of ACFF (the Association of Caribbean Families and Friends) based at their Education Cultural and Study Centre at 28 Beaconsfield Road, Hyson Green. The Association hosted a dinner for conference participants on the Saturday evening. The food was delicious and the entertainment provided by members of ACFF was memorable. This joyful event was much enjoyed by all who attended (including my young son) and it added greatly to the success of the weekend.

At the end of the conference on the Sunday, attendees were invited to visit an exhibition, The Black Presence in Nottingham, at Nottingham Castle, which was jointly curated by Len Garrison, ACFF and the Castle Museum. The Black Cultural Archives now situated in Windrush Square, Brixton was Len’s brainchild. I remember the previous iteration of the BCA in the 1980s when it was housed in a building in Coldharbour Lane. The upstairs room had shelves all around the walls stacked with files and files of information, mostly collected by Len. Len well knew the importance of Black History and how badly knowledge of it was needed by young people at the time, so it is unsurprising that when he was based in Nottingham he should have delved into the city’s history, persuaded the Castle Museum to put on this exhibition and even managed to obtain local authority funding for the production of a substantial catalogue to accompany it.

The visit to the exhibition made a perfect ending to the feast of Black History we had enjoyed.

This was the first conference organised by BASA. More followed in different parts of the country. A couple of years later, I took out a subscription to the ASACACHIB (later BASA) Newsletter which was published three times a year. The arrival of this little magazine was always eagerly looked forward to, as it contained much important information – long and short articles and book reviews, notifications of forthcoming events and, to me, most exciting of all, little snippets of information from parish records and archives about Black and Asian people located in all parts of the British Isles over the previous 500 years.

The BASA newsletter ran to 63 issues, the last 3 of which are available to download from the BASA website, or read online. Details of the contents of all issues are also given on this link: https://www.blackandasianstudies.org/newsletter_newsletter-html

Marika Sherwood played an extremely important role in the research and dissemination of British Black History. Via conferences and the BASA newsletter, she brought together enthusiasts young and old, academic and non-academic, of all ethnic backgrounds, and gave them platforms where they could exchange ideas on equal terms.

Her own research was hugely important and wide-ranging and it included British Asian as well as Black British History – for example her in-depth research on Lascar seafarers. This dual focus was important because there has always been less public interest and less publicity given to the history of Asians in Britain. Marika was conscious that children of Asian ancestry were as much in need of access to their history as children of African ancestry.

On Marika’s passing we have lost a giant of British Black and Asian History. I hope remembrance of her life will encourage others to try and replicate her enthusiasm and aim to emulate her contribution.

For me, Marika’s memory will always be tied up with ‘the best Black History conference ever’ that took place in Nottingham in 1993.

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