Black people in Sweden demonstrated for recognition Swedish transatlantic slave trade

Black people in Sweden (‘Afro-Swedes’) demonstrated in the main capital Stockholm to support a bill to recognize Sweden’s role in the transatlantic slave trade. The demonstration was held on May 12th 2011.

But Sweden, slave trade and the Caribbean doesn't sound natural when you think of Sweden. But long after most colonial powers abolished slavery, Sweden was still trafficking slaves. In 1847 Sweden proclaimed slavery illegal. Only then were the last slaves in the Swedish slave plantation island St Barthélemey in the West Indies set free.

The demonstration in Stockholm was not only about slavery, but also against racism in general. Urbanlife.se was at the demonstration and made the following impression.

"A lot has happened in Sweden recently to believe that change is on the way. Although the change I describe is perhaps not in line with Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus on December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, it is however, the first time in Sweden's history where ‘Afro-Swedes’ – a term people of African and Caribbean descent fight to be addressed as - have joined together in protest.



The demonstration in Stockholm held on May 12th draws attention to the bill initiated by Gustav Fridolin (Miljöpartiet) regarding the transatlantic slave trade that Sweden was a part of, but which has not yet been recognized by the Swedish government. This is something that Gustav now wants to change and therefore has written this bill. There was a chorus of dissatisfaction amongst the crowd with the announcement that the bill had been dismissed earlier that afternoon. "

Read the full story at Urbanlife.se

Some links and a video:
EU network: Sweden passive on 'slave auction'

Sweden’s slave trade

Swedish slave trade in Ghana

Video: In the tracks of The Panther - Dutch Black history in Indonesia

For years, Dutch author Griselda Molemans wondered about the dark skin colour of her grandfather from the Dutch Indies (present-day Indonesia), but failed to explain the origin.

One day, an elderly Indo-African couple from the garrison town of Purworejo in Java, gives her a clue about her family name. What follows next is a suprising quest, leading from the National Archives in Holland to Burkina Faso, Ghana and Java and resulting in the discovery of the African founding father of the Molemans family.

Griselda Molemans is a Los Angeles-based international Dutch reporter and former sports news anchorwoman on the Dutch television. Molemans was born in the Netherlands to an Indo-Molukken mother and a Creole Surinamese-Dutch father.



About her journey she wrote the book 'In the tracks of The Panther' (Dutch title: 'In het voetspoor van De Panter'). The story of the 'belanda hitam' soldiers, young African men who were bought on slave markets in Kumasi (in present-day Ghana) by the Dutch army between 1831 and 1872 and who served in the Dutch colonial Army in the Dutch Indies.

She is also the author of 'Black skin, Orange heart' (in Dutch: 'Zwarte huid, Oranje hart. Afrikaanse KNIL-nazaten in de diaspora'). A book with interviews, and photo sessions with the oldest descendants of African soldiers ('black Dutchmen') who served in the Dutch Indies (present-day Indonesia).

The life stories of these African soldiers and their descendants in The Netherlands, the US, Surinam, Ghana and Indonesia have been documented as part of Dutch colonial history.

Check out some of their stories, and some photographs of armando Ello at armando-ello.blogspot.com

Also see Indo-Africans: The forgotten story of the Black Dutchmen

Dutch Milly Scott - First black singer in the Eurovision Song Contest

Milly Scott (1935) is recognised as the first black singer to take part in the Eurovision Contest. She is a Dutch singer and actress of Surinamese origin and represented The Netherlands in the 1966 Eurovision Song Contest.

Scott had built up a career as a successful nightclub jazz singer, which led to her being given her own TV show, Scott in de Roos, in 1965. As a result, in 1966, she was given the chance to take part in the Dutch Eurovision selection, where her song "Fernando en Filippo" was a clear winner.

Scott went forward to the 11th Eurovision Song Contest, held in Luxembourg City on 5 March, where "Fernando en Filippo" ended the evening in 15th place of 18 entries with votes only from the UK and Ireland, continuing a run of poor Dutch results dating back to 1960. Although "Fernando en Filippo" was something of a novelty song (and was performed as such) at a time when ballads dominated Eurovision, Scott would subsequently claim controversially that her disappointing result was attributable, at least in part, to racism on the part of the voting jurors.



On her website she writes. “People didn’t realize I was the first black singer who took part in the contest. The Netherlands was reasonably "accustomed" to people of colour, but many other countries outside Holland absolutely not. The exceptions were Britain and Ireland, from each of them I got one point (so two points total), from the rest I got ZEROS.

Although I had performed for TV and radio with huge success, in the festival I was crushed. My first encounter with discrimination was a fact! It was 1967.”

Scott was born in 1935 in Den Helder in the Netherlands as Marion Henriette Louise Molly.

Also see Black singers at the Eurovision Song Contests

France Honors Poet Aimé Césaire At The Panthéon

France honored late Martinican poet and politician Aimé Césaire Wednesday at the famed Panthéon in Paris. The French government paid tribute to the grand man of letters in a national ceremony nearly three years after his death at the age of 94. The Panthéon pays homage to France’s greatest intellectuals.

Césaire was one of the founding fathers of the "Negritude" movement that celebrated black consciousness. In Paris in the 1930s he helped found the journal Black Student, which gave birth to the idea of “negritude,” a call to blacks to cultivate pride in their heritage. Among his more famous works of literature are Notebook of a Return to my Native Land and Discourse on Colonialism.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy presided over the tribute to the Martinican poet that was attended by more than 1,000 persons inside the Panthéon. Among those present were family, friends and dignitaries. Césaire died April 17, 2008 in Martinique. President Sarkozy dedicated a plaque in Césaire’s memory at the Panthéon. Source Suite101

See pictures of the event at fxgpariscaraibe - "Césaire au Panthéon"

Speech of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, part 1


Part 2

Poet Aimé Césaire honoured at the Panthéon in Paris on April 6, 2011

Aimé Césaire the poet and politician from Martinique will be honored by the French Republic on April 6, 2011 with a national tribute and ceremony at the Pantheon in Paris.

Two years after the renowned writer and statesman passed away, a plaque will be sealed in the heart of the famous French monument dedicated to the burials of personalities acknowledged as great men by the French Republic.

According to Unesco it will be the third plaque which pays tribute to a man of African descent. Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803) and Louis Delgrès (1766-1802) were similarly honored in 1998. In accordance with his wishes, Aimé Césaire’s ashes will remain in Martinique hence they won’t be transferred into the monument.

(Alexandre Dumas, père was reburied in 2002 in the Pantheon 132 years after his death.)

On the occasion of the 2004 International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition, UNESCO awarded the Toussaint Louverture Prize to the author, in acknowledgement to his contribution to the struggle against domination, racism and intolerance.

Worldwide considered as a humanistic and universal poet, his candidature was proposed for the Nobel Prize of peace by two European universities in Belgium and Sweden in 2006.

Commemorating his death, UNESCO also paid a special tribute to the Poet of Negritude on 22 May 2008.

* Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803) is a freed slave who led the fight for Haiti’s independence.
* Louis Delgrès (1766-1802) is a revolutionary soldier who took part into the resistance while the re-establishment of slavery by the Napoleonean troups in Guadeloupe. (Source: UNESCO)

The ceremony will be broadcasted live on France 2 and the overseas network channels first (France Ô).

A tribute to Monsieur Aimé Césaire


Remembering Aimé Césaire, 1913-2008


In this video Aimé Césaire speaks about his first encounter with
Léopold Sédar Senghor in Paris in the 1930s. Alongside Léon-Gontran Damas, and Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire established the concept of Négritude. Négritude helped to guide Sénégal into independence with pride

The Image of Black people in Western Art in Europe

I had never heard of the American art project "The Image of the Black in Western Art" until I stumbled upon a presentation of Professor Henry Louis Gates.

According to the website www.imageoftheblack.com the project started in the 1960s, as a response to segregation in the United States by the influential art patron Dominique de Menil. He began a research project and photo archive called The Image of the Black in Western Art.

The Harvard W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research presented an new edition coveted five original books, as well as an additional five volumes.

A presentation of Vera Ingrid Grant about the collection


If you want to see images or more information go to the website www.imageoftheblack.com.

Amsterdam

The American art project reminded me of the exhibition "Black is Beautiful" in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam in 2008 about the attractiveness of black people for artists of the Low Countries. It was an exhibition of roughly 130 paintings, drawings and manuscripts from Dutch and international collections.

Very interesting to check out are the short films and tests on the online exhibition. Go straight to the Short films & View test at www.blackisbeautifulamsterdam.nl

Or go to the main page at www.blackisbeautifulamsterdam.nl

What I find interesting about these images is seeing the faces and expressions of black people of centuries ago. Some of the paintings are as detailed as digital photos. The photo above is of Caspar de Crayer 1584- 1669, study of the head of a black man, from around 1631-1635.


USA

A presentation of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on The Image of the Black in Western Art.

Video: Portrait Of Handworth riot in 1985 - Pogus Caesar (UK)

Black History UK: In 1985 racial tension and community discontentment escalated into the historical Handsworth riots that rocked Birmingham between 9th - 11th September 1985.

Birmingham film maker and photographer Pogus Caesar knows Handsworth well. He found himself in the centre of the 1985 riots and spent two days capturing a series of startling images. Caesar kept them hidden for 20 years. Why? And how does he see Handsworth now?.

The stark black and white photographs featured in the film provide a rare, valuable and historical record of the raw emotion, heartbreak and violence that unfolded during those dark and fateful days in September 1985.

See more information at BBC's Community features

Thank you Sabine for the information.

Black History Month 2011 - The Association of Students of African Heritage (ASAH) Netherlands

The Association of Students of African Heritage (ASAH) in The Netherlands cordially invites you to the fourth edition of Black History Month on 18th and 25th February 2011.

About ASAH
ASAH was founded by and for students who can directly and indirectly distract their roots from Africa and for those who have affinity with the African continent. ASAH activities are geared on providing members with opportunities to further develop themselves on a personal, professional, social and cultural level during the course of their studies. The activities organized by ASAH include Black History Month, Movie nights, Africa Rising, Social Lounges, Excursions and ASAH’s first trip abroad to London in 2010. The Student Association is based at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Black History Month 2011

Theme: “The Economics of Culture – the way we dress, eat and express ourselves from an economic perspective”

Many African and Afro-Caribbean countries are endowed with resources that could stimulate economic stability and independence. However, many of those are plight by economic inefficiencies coupled with a constant dependence on global resources. For example, “one may see a black woman elegantly clothed with traditional attire. But her cloth may be from Vlisco (the Dutch manufacturer of African prints), shoes/slippers from Italy and earrings/jewelleries from Thailand. Instead of local manufactures many prefer Hollywood movies over Nollywood/Ghallywood/Black films or even opt for Indian Basmati or American Uncle Sam rice instead of locally cultivated rice etc”.

Considering the trends of commerce, “to what extent are we (Blacks) economically independent when we portray the African/(Afro-) culture”?

Programme Outline

Day 1: Friday February 18th – Culture and Entrepreneurship

The first day of BHM 2011 focuses on culture and the similarities between Blacks from the Diaspora and the African continent. It also provides an opportunity to explore the economic aspect of culture. Furthermore, day 1 serves as a window to showcase and promote Afro-businesses, as well as a means to network. The day is set up as follows:
• Through the conceptualization of culture and what constitutes the African/(Afro-) culture, a “Black Cultural Expert” will enlighten us with reference to the theme. The expert will talk about various developments in the Black culture over the years.
• Fashion show: Traditional clothing from the African continent and the Diaspora will be displayed. Two different kinds of clothing from the following areas is to be modelled:
o West Africa
o East Africa
o Southern Africa
o Former Netherlands Antilles
o Suriname
During the fashion show, information will be provided about the attires, their origins, designer etc.
• Entrepreneurs: After the fashion show, Mrs. L. Echtelt of Mariposa Import, will share her views on “Black consumerism and entrepreneurship”.
• Cultural treats/snacks: There will be cultural snacks to enjoy. Information will be provided about the ingredients used, its origin, the caterers and/or where to buy them.
• There will also be a spoken word performance by T. Martinus. The day ends with a Musical performance!

When: Friday, 18th February 2011
Venue: Surinaamse Jongeren Centrum Samen Sterk,
Zieken 103, 2515 SB Den Haag
A 3 minute walk from train station The Hague HS
Parking is available, free parking from 17:00
Doors open: at 17.30
The programme starts: at 18:00
Entrance: Free
Language: English and Dutch
Pre-Registration is appreciated, please sent a mail to info@asah-eur.nl


Day 2: Friday February 25th – Presentation and workshop entrepreneurship

The second day of BHM 2011 consists of a workshop and an interactive presentation at the Erasmus University.

• Workshop: To encourage the youth and BHM participants of African heritage to take initiative to become entrepreneurs, Ms. W. Gillis-Burleson – managing director of Legato B.V. and the best Black Business Woman 1997 – will give a workshop on empowerment and entrepreneurship. This workshop aims to equip participants with some fundamental knowledge, tools and skills essential for business for starters.
• Presentation: Mr. T. Kofi – Director of the Foundation Africa Next Door – will talk about the consumption trends of Black people and its consequences. Mr. Kofi will show the correlation between the African continent and Black communities worldwide. Participants or the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions or share their opinion. Amongst others, there will be a debate/discussion on “Does our culture inhibit us to enterprise?” during the discussion round.

When: Friday, 25th February 2011
Venue: Erasmus University Rotterdam,
C-Building, Room CB-109
Doors open: at 16.30
The programme starts: at 17:00
Entrance: Free
Language: English and Dutch
Pre-Registration is appreciated, please sent a mail to info@asah-eur.nl

We, ASAH, look forward to celebrate Black History Month 2011 with you! For further info: visit www.asah-eur.nl

Black History Month 2011 is presented in collaboration with NiNsee (Nationaal instituut Nederlands slavernijverleden en erfenis) see: www.ninsee.nl

2011 is the International Year for People of African Descent (or The International Year for Black People?)

The UN launched 2011 as The International Year of People of African descent 2011. Through this symbolic action the UN wants to stress the importance to eradicate racism, of which according to the UN, people of African descent all over the world are the most important victims.

This more than 50 years after most African countries gained independence and nearly 50 years after the US Civil Rights Bill was passed (1964), giving equal rights to black people in the US and abolishing formal segregation.

When thinking of people of African descent, or the African Diaspora, people often think automatically about the African-Americans in the US and sometimes black people in Brazil. We often overlook the fact that there are black people all over Latin America (from Mexico to Chile), Europe and even as far as Pakistan, Iran and India where little communities of African descendents often live an isolated life (For more info on Siddi click here). The year is a chance to bring the presence of peoples of African descent all over the world, and their history, into focus.



Check the video below from the UN webcast in which the International Year of People of African Descent was launched. It is pecular to notice how everybody avoids the use of 'black' as a valid word to designate the group of people they talk about. The choice goes for 'People of African descent' or the new word combination 'Africa Descendants'. These choice of words is in itself worth a through research entitled 'From Negroes to Africa Descendants. On How Black People Have Been Named and Defined throughout Western History'. Basically they are right to do so, as Africa Descendents are often not literally 'black'.



Another interesting contribution on the topic can be found on the OBV (Operation Black Vote) UK-website on this link

What is the Black Atlantic? My Comparative Perspective

Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic (1994) is a difficult read but it’s a very influential book. An author who builds further on Gilroy’s work and who writes very accessible books about blackness is Livio Sansone (professor of anthropology at the University of Bahia, Brazil). His book ‘Blackness Without Ethnicity’ (2003) was a very insightful read that I recommend to anyone interested in the subject. In this book he compares black Brazilian experience and cultural production with the African American experience (check this blog www.afrobrazilamerica.com on the difference between black US and black Brazil experiences). One of the chapters of the book even goes further and is based on his research among black youth in Amsterdam compared to black youth in Bahia and Rio. Generally Sansone has written interesting articles about balckness and Western Afro cultures (check this article) . Below I will give my understandings and perspectives on the Black Atlantic, as an inherent part of the broad social and cultural entity called ‘The West’.

There are black people living in all countries of the Americas, in Europe and of course in Africa. The history of all these black populations is interrelated and all in reference to their relation to white European culture. African nations are (unfortunately) a consequence of European history and international affairs. African elites have often Europe and European languages as a reference point for culture, knowledge and social emancipation. The same thing can be said in an even more thorough sense of Latin America. All these cultures, or at least its elites and urban populations are therefore according to me part of the same Western world.

But the black populations of these nations are not all the same, just as all these countries differ from each other although being interrelated in history. Black Brazilians experience race in a very different way than African Americans. Black Britons do not express their identity within the UK in the same way as Black French communities in France. Each country has its own dynamics, history, culture and identity. Still there is also much in common which is all centered around three elements: history, race and Africa.

Race

Race as a social concept has been created through the history of Europe’s self-identification. Not only did Europe create its own identity in contrast to the (predominantly Muslim) East, but also in contrast to the ‘primitive’ black Africans in the South. Creating the concept Europe meant creating ‘whiteness’ and defining it in contrast to all it is not. This history lives on in current societies in Africa, Europe and the Americas. It took different shapes and contents but has kept a common framework in which the lighter one’s skin is, the better the person is perceived (also in Africa).

History

It would be too complex to bring all different forms of blackness in all countries bordering the Atlantic in one post, but the Black Atlantic is definitely an interesting starting point for a whole new historical and social analyses of the Atlantic world with its common history of racism, slavery and colonialism.

While the US have had in the 20th century a dominant place in the culture, economy and political arena of the world, their concepts and expressions of race have had a big influence on the black populations from Kenia, France till Peru. But we can not only focus on appearance and jump to conclusions. Black populations found American elements of blackness and incorporated it in their local culture. Although black urban culture form the US has influenced black kids from Paris, Cape Town, Dar-es-Salaam, Berlin, … it has often shaped the form, not always the content.

Africa

Africa has played a major role in the creation of the African American identity. This happened in retrospect, i.e. the black populations of America rediscovered their African heritage in the 20th century and used Africa as some kind of reservoir of symbols from which to draw inspiration to create an identity. Why creating an identity? As we can read in the works of Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. DuBois and later Césaire , blacks in the West wanted to be accepted as an inherent part of the cultures they inhabited and had assimilated. Unfortunately the racism that Europe had created in the creation of its own identity didn’t make this possible. Being black meant not being fully American, not being really French, not being accepted as a full member of the nation … (Brazil’s political leaders incorporated the concept of "raça mestiça"’ (mixed race) as an inherent part of its identity starting in the 30’s, in Cuba it only started in the 60’s while the rest of Latin America only recently acknowledges its mixed identity, still Africa keeps a marginal place in this mix). In a world where blacks felt home but rejected by the white reference they felt the need to rethink their identity. This rethinking has resulted into African American culture with its Harlem Renaissance and Dubois as its most important intellectual. This American experience dripped down to all black populations in the world, and has put a mark on the form of many black communities throughout the Atlantic world (as the experience of exclusion through racism works essentially in the same way throughout the Western world).

The Black Look, The Local Style

While black kids in Brazil wear the same sneakers, caps and golden chains, and even greet each other the same way as their black contemporaries in Alabama and Marseille, they do not all consume the same culture as such. While French urban youth listen massively to rap music, their rap music is not the same thing as rap in the US, ‘funk’ in Brazil’s big cities, reggaeton in Panama or dancehall in Kingston, Jamaica. All this cultural expressions look the same, are dominated by dark skinned, often poor, urban youngsters, but they are all very much rooted in the local culture and mentality.

Today black French or black Brazilian also look directly at Africa, directly and not through the US spectrum only. They look at the content, but mostly take the forms (the masks, the symbols, the colours, rhythms, styles …) for inspiration and self identity. While e.g. the Jamaican Rastafarian movement drew its inspirations from Ethiopian symbols it gave it another content. This new Rasta culture was picked up by Africans afterwards and given again a new content, while black French mixed other African symbols from West-Africa with Jamaican symbols and North American ones to create yet again a new identity. And this goes on and on.

On the surface you might be tempted to think that being black in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Chicago or Sao Paulo is the same thing. Well it looks the same thing, its rooted in a common historical and social framework but it is not exactly the same thing. It’s a constant dialogue between cultures. They all wear the same clothes and their music is all rhythmically based and mixed with rapping styles and soul vocals. The form is definitely based on the American example and reference for the whole Atlantic world. The content though, is determined by the local social dynamics, the local history, language and culture. You can’t just transplant black experience in the US on the life of blacks in the whole world. Although all black people of the Atlantic world share a common framework of racial stereotypes. The way these stereotypes are played out locally is often very different.

Examples

Still, the Black Atlantic exists and is most ‘visible’ in musical productions and all expressions surrounding it. I was stunned to hear the champeta music in Cartagena, the black capital of Colombia, and realize it sounded just like the soukous and ndombolo styles of Kinshasa and nowadays most parts of black Africa (which was inspired in the 70’s by Cuban rumba). I was just as surprised to see how Central American youngsters re-interpreted dancehall music from Jamaica and called it reggaeton . I was amazed to see how the black crowds of South Africa incorporated techno and house into their local kwaito music . I was charmed to see how street kids in Nairobi imitated US rappers but mixed it with the traditional rhythmic story telling style of their forefathers. I fell in love with the mix of techno, reggae and hip hop that resulted into the British scenes of UK garage , jungle , drum&bass and ultimately grime/dubstep and 2step. And most recently I experienced how Angolan kuduro (itself an interpretation of US hip hop) became a new style of techno in Lisbon through the productions of Buraka Som Sistema. This kuduro sound is right now influencing Brazilian funk. There is so much to experience and tell.

Dialogue in Black and White

There is a constant dialogue between populations of the Atlantic, a dialogue dominated by its black populations is what is called the Black Atlantic, a dialogue that existed before internet and only intensified since then. This dialogue isn’t exclusively black in a racial sense. Blacks have always incorporated mixed race people within their communities, blackness is in a way a cultural expression of mixing and hybridity. It is those parts of Western culture which Western culture rejects as being part of its own identity. It therefore becomes ‘black’ or ‘world’.
The Black Atlantic doesn’t exclude white people, on the contrary. Many whites are and were important actors within the cultures of the Black Atlantic, but it is a culture dominated by the poorest and predominantly dark skinned peoples of the Atlantic, a culture of bricolage and mixing, meeting and creation.

Often, once great many people with no biological dominant African ancestry adopt the cultural expressions of the Black Atlantic, the mainstream (white) establishment is prepared to integrate it into what is called ‘Western culture’. Then it becomes colorless, i.e. just French, American, Western, … and the term black is faded out. Examples are today found in house music , techno, electro and rock, but also in the way painters such as Picasso integrated African elements within the high culture of Europe. If Picasso would have been a mixed race person of African or black Caribbean ancestry I guess his paintings would have been defined as ‘afro’.

In this Black Atlantic, Africa and its history functions as some kind of reservoir of symbols, from which we all draw inspiration to create and re-create our identities. That is what blacks in Paris, Berlin, Rio, New York, Amsterdam all do, that is what the Black Atlantic actually is. Today this re-interpreting of our African heritage within the Western world is still in full swing and it’s still a struggle to make the West (or at least our home countries) aware of their African heritage.

Drum&Bass and Jungle

For me personally Jungle music and the culture surrounding it expressed in a perfect way the symbiosis of black and white within my world. This is/was music that brought all together, all styles and all colours. It was the 90’s, it was fresh, it was ‘black’, but it was immediately assimilated by white youth too. It’s urban, and it definitely has its roots among the poor urban minorities of the UK. But it’s music for all. Therefore I want to end this post with 3 video’s: first an interview of Goldie in 1996 (and check his very LAST WORDS), second a video of Congo Natty, junglist nr1. Who emphasizes the black nature of jungle music and finally a track (Brown Paper Bag) from the best selling jungle album (and a must have) from Roni Size, which was out in 1997. Still so fresh!

SCAWDI wants to meet Black history interest groups in the UK and abroad

SCAWDI (Sparkbrook Caribbean and African Women's Development Initiative) is a community organisation committed to engaging local people with their own heritage.

Based in Birmingham, England we have recently completed a 12 month project researching the Black presence in the West Midlands prior to 1918. This has been done by training volunteers to investigate and narrate historical sources. We have published a short book named after this project, History Detectives, which has details of all of the Black people we have found during our research period to date, fourteen of whom have had their stories told in full.

We are aware that there are many other Black history interest groups, both at home and abroad, who share our passion for uncovering hidden histories such as these, but too much work goes unnoticed.

We would like to form as many contacts as possible with groups and individuals that have similar research and organisational objectives so that all our work can be shared to as wide a network as possible.

If you would like to connect with us please contact me at dav.callaghan@gmail.com or visit our website www.scawdi.co.uk. Our mailing address is Friends Institute, 220 Moseley Road, Birmingham, B12 ODG.

Barbara Blake Hannah - First black news anchor in the UK + Book "Growing out"

Photo:TODAY host Eamonn Andrews, Jane Probyn & Barbara Blake
Trevor McDonald is regarded as the first black news anchor in the UK, but the real first was actually Barbara Blake Hannah. She appeared in the THAMES TV daily magazine programme “TODAY” in 1968, but due to racist comments her contract was terminated after 9 months.

In her new book "Growing out" Jamaican journalist and filmmaker Barbara Blake Hannah tells her story. "In 1968, seeking a change from my position with a London PR company as Executive for the Jamaica Tourist Board account, I applied for a job as a journalist with the new THAMES TV daily magazine programme “TODAY”. I was invited to do an audition as an on-screen presenter and within days was invited to be one of 3 daily reporter/interviewers on the show, hosted by TV personality Eamonn Andrews.

It was the first time that a Black person had appeared on British TV in a news capacity, other than as entertainers, and the news made national front pages. However, racists sent daily hate messages to the station, which bowed under the pressure and after 9 months my contract was not renewed."

In her books she also writes how Black consciousness influenced her hair style. "In GROWING OUT, I write about my early years growing up in Jamaica and how from childhood Black women’s hair influences their self-esteem negatively. I carried this self-hate to a decade in England in the “Swinging Sixties”, where the racism I encountered was counterbalanced by an education in Black consciousness generated by the cultural, political and racial events of the time. GROWING OUT describes how the psychological and actual experience lead me to grow out my natural hair and emancipate my mind from colonial mental slavery."

Blake was interviewed for the "Speak out against discrimination!" campaign of the Council of Europe and was asked how she would respond to the complaint that media reporting of ethnic communities remains generally unfavourable.

Blake: "International media portray Jamaica as (a) tropical paradise, or (b) drug-addicted, violent, dangerous island. Most of the time Jamaica is neither of these but a small heaven on earth, so we often smile or get angry at how we are depicted in these clichés. But I organise an annual festival of films featuring and/or containing reggae music and they show me that if the traditional media is reporting unfavourably about my country, another kind of media is reporting the exact opposite – a more accurate and true picture of life in Jamaica . As the media expands through YouTube, Facebook and other Internet programmes, the work of journalists is taken out of the hands of a few, often prejudiced, hands and expanded into the wider global media community.

This is the future of the media. As a film maker, I do what I can to use film as a true medium of communication. I am inspired by the great Cuban film maker Santiago Alvarez, who first introduced me to the power of the documentary film to convey messages to counteract misinformation. Michael Moore has continued this tradition so expertly, updating the genre in amusing ways."

Indo-Africans: The forgotten story of the Black Dutchmen

An Indo-African Black Dutchmen family in The Netherlands
The story of the Black Dutchmen is an almost forgotten part of African, Dutch and Indonesian black History. That's why the Indo-Africans are now exploring their roots.

The Black Dutchmen are the descendants of 3,000 young West African men who were “bought” between 1831 and 1872 by the Dutch colonial army to help crush uprisings in what is now Indonesia.

They were given Dutch nationality, Dutch names, and many of the privileges of the colonial masters.

Many of these men chose to settle in Central Java, and took native wives. Their sons continued to serve in the colonial army until Indonesia's independence. The Belanda Hitam, or Black Dutchmen, as they were called, then sailed off the Netherlands, the homeland they had never seen.

Today every other year or so, the Belanda Hitam, or Black Dutchmen as they are now known in the Netherlands, gather to celebrate their unique ancestry, the RNW reports.

The scene is utterly confusing, even for those most at ease in multicultural settings: tall, black, curly haired older men in African attire; short, fragile, dark skinned, flat nosed women draped in Asian prints; the lighter skinned, more Mediterranean looking youths, and then the lighter haired Caucasians. What they have in common are their Indo-African roots.

With African music, Indonesian food, and an Indo-African fashion show, about 150 of them gathered again recently to share stories about their common ancestors.

“Our story”
The African roots were long kept hidden. Was it shame, or the desire to blend into Dutch society that prevented the Indo-African elders from revealing their secret?

“It’s our story”, says Joyce Cordus, and it’s still largely unknown in the Netherlands”, despite several books having been written about the Black Dutchmen. Her father is Daan Cordus, 89, the oldest remaining descendent of the group in the Netherlands who has devoted the past decades to gathering information about their shared background. Today, Joyce is taking over his responsibility as chairman of their association.

Like her, young members of the 5th generation want to understand why they feel different in Dutch society. “They have lots of questions and we have to look for other ways to reach them.” Joyce plans to do that by using social media platforms such as Facebook, its Dutch equivalent Hyves, and Twitter.

Video of book presentation "Zwarte Huid Oranje Hart" ("Black skin, Orange Hart") here

Read The Black Dutchmen: The Story of African Soldiers in The Netherlands East Indies here

Read Indo-African Dutch Soldiers of Ghanaian descent here

Interesting to note is that the same indo-black ethnicity is also present in Surinam. A large group of Javanese people from former Dutch colony of Indonesia were brought to Surinam to serve as contract labourers after the abolition of slavery in 1863.

Timbuktu - The place where the Western "Songs and Dance Theory" of Black people ends

Because we are in the middle of the Black History Month UK a story about the mystical place Timbuktu.

"Everybody's heard of Timbuktu but few people actually know where it is and even fewer ever get there. Everyone knows that it's a long way from here to Timbuktu, wherever "here" might be," wrote a travel journalist.

Well Timbuktu lies in the country of Mali and it’s the place where the Western "songs and dance theory" of African people ends. Because in Timbuktu you will find the hidden libraries and manuscripts of the ancient black scholars of one of the oldest Universities on the planet.


Aminatta Forna tells the story of legendary Timbuktu and its long hidden legacy of hundreds of thousands of ancient manuscripts. With its university founded around the same time as Oxford, Timbuktu is proof that the reading and writing of books have long been as important to Africans as to Europeans.


The manuscripts of Timbuktu cover diverse subjects such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, optics, astronomy, medicine, Islamic sciences, history, geography, the tradition of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, government legislation and treatise, jurisprudence, and much more. The manuscripts of Timbuktu are a living testimony of the highly advanced and refined civilization in Sub-Saharan Africa.

But although this heritage is familiar to numerous Africans, many Westerners still believe that Africa had only an oral, nonliterate culture. Comments like those made by the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1963 still resonate: "Perhaps in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none. There is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness."

In reality, Timbuktu was once a haven of high literacy. These manuscripts, some dating to the 14th century and written mostly in Arabic, show that medieval Timbuktu was a religious and cultural hub as well as a commercial crossroads on the trans-Saharan caravan route. Situated at the strategic point where the Sahara touches on the River Niger, it was the gateway for African goods bound for the merchants of the Mediterranean, the courts of Europe and the larger Islamic world, wrote Lila Azam Zanganeh in the New York times.

Read more about this video at hwww.fordfoundation.org


Links
http://www.timbuktufoundation.org

The post was inspired by the Afro-Brazilian site http://www.casadasafricas.com.br

Black History Month 2010 in the UK

Not February, but October is the Black History Month in the UK. This means an entire month full of events, music and debate about the presence of black people from the Caribbean and Africa in the UK.

To celebrate BHM a video of the Windrush legacy, West Indians in the UK in World War II and the poem "What it Means to be Black" of Jason Nwansi. And a video of Beyonce singing the national anthem of Nigeria, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the independence of Nigeria.

West Indians also fought in World War II and some of them were stationed in the UK. The video West Indies Calling (1943) describes the Caribbean support of a group of West Indians during World War Two


See more videos here

An important landmark of the history of the Afro-Caribbean community in the United Kingdom is the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 in the harbour of Southampton. The Empire Windrush arrived on 22 June, carrying 492 passengers from Jamaica wishing to start a new life in the UK. The passengers were the first large group of West Indian immigrants to the UK after the Second World War. Most of them only intended to stay in England for five years, but most of them stayed.

Video of the Windrush legacy


The poem "What it Means to be Black" written & performed by Jason Nwansi.

See the written poem here

Also part of UK's Black History is the celebration of 50th anniversary of the independence of Nigeria. So, a gift from Beyonce. In the video she sings the national anthem of Nigeria "Arise, O Compatriots".

I am not Nigerian, but it gives me goose bumps when I listen to it.

BHM links

BHM the official guide to Black History Month
www.blackhistorymonthuk.co.uk

Black History Magazine 2010
www.blackhistorymonth2010.co.uk

Black history agenda Catch a Vibe
www.catchavibe.co.uk

Exhibition: Black Britannia - Celebrating black success in the UK (London)

Irish Guard. 25 Year old Nicholas Tunge orginally from Kenya, gets himself ready for parade at Buckingham Palace.
H/t www.itzcaribbean.com

Black Britannia photographic exhibition by John Ferguson. Achievement of inspirational Black Britons celebrated at Open The Gate for Black History Month on 1st October - 22nd October 2010 in London.

Black Britannia features striking photograph portraits by talented photographer John Ferguson, Fleet Streets first black photographer in the 1980's, of some of the most well known - and less familiar - black men and women who have risen to the top of their chosen fields.

Under the title Black Britannia, the full exhibition comprises of 55 portraits of inspirational black Britons who inspired personnaly the artist in the past or who are currently making great strides in public life. Of the 55 black Britons, some well know names such as Sir Trevor McDonald, Lenny Henry, Naomi Campbell, Paul Ince, Lewis Hamilton, and others from various occupations such as head teachers to supermodels, boxers to lawyers - these are people from all walks of life.

For Black History Month 2010, John Ferguson has selected his favourites portraits of individuals to show at Open The Gate in Hackney, London. The exhibition aims to highlighting the achievements of these individuals, by promoting a positive image of black Britons and a message to today’s black youth through these high quality aesthetic portraits.

Role models

In a foreword John Ferguston explains the goal of the exhibition. "The aims of this exhibition are simple enough - to celebrate the contribution made to British culture and public life by Black people over the last few decades.

The achievements of these individuals, however, have been far from simple. Breaking through the glass ceiling that still exists for Black people in British society even today still requires persistence, ambition and guts.

In some parts of Britain, the kinds of role models young Black people grow up with are almost entirely negative. This exhibition is an attempt to redress the balance. It is very much a personal selection, but all those featured here have succeeded in their chosen professions because of unflinching determination to reach their full potential. " Read the whole foreword at www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk



Paul Ince, English football manager and first black captain of the English national team


Gina Yashere British comedian


Lewis Hamilton, British Formula One racing driver


Baroness Amos, the first black woman to sit in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom


Black History Month at Open The Gate Exhibition Dates 1st October - 22nd October 2010 in London. Please visit www.openthegate.org.uk for more information.

But! Also take a look at some great portraits of John Ferguson about 'Living with Albinism in the UK'


Victoria, part of the series of portraits on 'Living with Albinism in the UK'

See the website of John Ferguson at www.johnferguson.co.uk

Also see the website www.100greatblackbritons.com/

Black people in Sweden – An African American experience

“African and African Diasporans have been living in Sweden since the 1300s,” writes Madubuko A. Robinson Diakité in his briefing ‘Afro Diasporians in Sweden, An unfinished History’ (2005). Diakité is a US born Swedish human rights lawyer and academic who has lived in Sweden since 1968.

His briefing is about Sweden’s “Blue men” during slavery, the African-American experience from the 1960s until today, and about the new arrived African immigrants in Sweden. In the intro he writes: “It's the result of many personal interviews and oral histories I have listened to with people here since my arrival in 1968.”

See snippets of the document below and download the pdf-document here.

M. A. Robinson Diakité is also Publisher and Managing Editor of a English University magazine entitled The Lundiun . A must read for everyone who is interested in Sweden.

Snippets of Afro Diasporians in Sweden

Post World War II arrivals

During 1950s and 60s, most African Americans who came to reside did so to join Family members (wives, husbands), or in the promotion of their arts. Also Jazz musicians, choreographers and others came during that time and made a lasting contribution to the development of post-ware Swedish artist, dancers and singers.

Bad Icons

It has been estimated that during the Vietnam era, between 600 and 800 US deserters came to Sweden, and appromatitely 15% of these were African American. [Unfortunately some of them became bad icons, because they were involveld in criminal activities.]

When president Jimmy Carter's Amnesty was adopted most of deseters returned home, Today, there are only a few (less than 20) African American military deserters living in Sweden.

African American Business in Sweden

One of the success stories is the language school and translation company from New Orleons native Ronald B. Antoine. The company was founded in 1970 and expanded in the period of 1971- 1980.

The end of A love affair

The handfull of African American in Sweden who live here today seem to be well assimilated even though they are, like other non-European immigrants, the victims of ethnic discrimination on the job and housing markets. To earn of living most of us have either low-level service-oriented job, are engaged in the production of fine art, or are on disability pensions for one reason or another.

New and recent arrivals

Today's fresh arrivals of African Americans are nearly all young men who are employed for their skills at basketball to work as coaches or team members. But this a skills-bank which is not open to other sports where African American have a high profile such as boxing or track.

Many members of the older generation now have children who, because they attend elementary school here and may have one Swedish parent, have integrated into Swedish society better then they did. But there are also those whose now grown children have left Sweden because they failed to find their place in Sweden society.

However, there are some succes stories too: the country's most popular Rap artist, Timbuktu, is an African American by parentage (both parents are Americans: one black, one white). [His real name is Jason Michael Robinson Diakité, he is the son of the author.]




Africans and African Diasporans have a long, intensive history in Sweden, and have left many legacies. Scores of Swedish singers, musicians and civil rights activist proudly tell long stories of the contributions that African American dances and musicians made to their own interpretations of the arts and cultures. But these stories are never written in Swedish history books.

The older generation of African and Diasporians in Sweden is aging and passing on. The new generation, consisting largely of political refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa and their families, are beginning to enter the political arena, albeit slowly. The national election of 2001 saw the election of two Sub-Saharan Africans to the Swedish Parliament. [One of them is of course Nyamko Sabuni (politician, currently serving as Minister for Integration and Gender Equality in the Swedish government)]

Some links:

African immigrants to Sweden (Wikipedia)
Urban Life (portal for the Afro-Swedish community)

Slavery Remembrance Day (UNESCO) - 23 August 2010

Video of the opening of the exhibit at the South Gallery of the UN Headquarters in New York on March 24 2010
Slavery Remembrance Day - 23 August 2010 (UNESCO)

This year the United Nations celebrated the third commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. This year's commemoration included an art exhibit and was dedicated to the people of Haiti. The video is of the Commemoration of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade of the UN on 25 March.

Slavery Remembrance Day falls on the anniversary of an uprising of enslaved Africans on the island of Saint Domingue (modern Haiti) on 23 August 1791.

The date has been designated by UNESCO as Slavery Remembrance Day, a reminder that enslaved Africans were the main agents of their own liberation.

For more information http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism/

A History of Black people in Europe

It is generally known that black people have been residing in European countries since the early colonial times. But even before the 15th century and during Roman times, a time when colour of skin still wasn’t a racist stigma but just another physical feature, black people lived in Europe. Remains of a man with black African features were found in England recently, dating his life back to the 13th century. Read this article for more info.

Besides that, facts have been found of black people living in different parts of Europe, although I don’t want to overstate their presence or influence. But it is generally known that during the Muslim era of the Iberian Peninsula (from the 8th century AD until the 15th century AD) people with dark skin were part of daily live. The Muslims who invaded Spain and Portugal around 700 AD were a mixture of black and dark people from North-Africa. They were often referred to as Maures, wrote about and painted, way before the dehumanization of black people started.

I added above Jan Mostaert's portrait of a nobleman, guest of the Queen of Austria. This painting dates back to the early 1500's in what we now call Belgium, then part of the Duchy of Brabant. There is no doubt this man has African roots while being a respected member of European culture. We can only guess that this man is of Maure origin, i.e. a Muslim having converted to Christianity or even the second or third generation of converts.

Below I will go deeper into the subject. I will give you some internet links, book references and a list of early Europeans of African descent, each time linked to their wiki page. If you know more about the subject I invite you to add information in a comment.


Al Andalus

Many blacks who were Muslims converted to Christianity after the emirate of Al Andalus was abolished (end of 15th century). But the Reconquista took centuries (8th-15th century) and during those times black people gradually integrated the Christian and Northern European world. Among them were noble men and scholars. The negative image of blacks, as natural slaves, only gained prominence in the 18th century when the transatlantic slave trade became a central piece of European economical activity and later when European nation-states were being established.

Slavery and racism

Of course slavery existed before racism. In the 15th century blacks and whites were enslaved indiscriminately. Blacks in the America’s could become free men and own their own slaves and land (which was rather common in colonial Brazil for instance). It is only in later years that being black made you a slave forever and by birth, or at least a kind of human always inferior to white people. This racial perspective on identity and humanity only gained authority in later modern times. Read more on the subject here.

Coat of Arms

Black people were part of European imagination and reality from very early times. Read more here and here. We can say with certainty that there were black people in Europe before that white people reached the area south of the Sahara. North Africa, Iberia and the Middle East were the crossroad where black and white intermingled. In Europe references to blacks was a positive sign of strength and military power. Still today you can find many blacks in coat of arms for towns all over Europe, central, south and north, dating back to the middle ages.



Some Literature

After the 15th century, Portugal entered an intense relationship with African kingdoms in the Gulf of Guinea and the Congo coasts. Slave trade (although not based on race) and exchange between the kings led to the presence of Europeans on the West- and Central African shores, just as Africans in Portugal. Accounts from those days tell us that the sight of black people in the streets of Lisbon wasn’t a rarity during the Middle Ages, more on the contrary. I want to refer to following books for those who want to know more about this topic:
Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, Thomas Foster Earle,K. J. P. Lowe(eds.)
Africa's discovery of Europe, David Northrup

As a consequence of the slave trade free blacks also arrived in Europe between the 16th and 19th century. Blacks lived in London, Liverpool, Lisbon, Seville, … during the 17th and 18th century. Other historical books with scientific authority give you in depth knowledge of this:
Hugh Thomas’s ‘The Slave Trade’
Ivan Van Sertima’s ‘African Presence in Early Europe’
All this publications teach us something about this hidden part of European history.

Leo Africanus

Leo Africanus is often stated as one of these black and European noble men and scholars. But it is rather speculation to state if he was black or white. He was definitely a Maure but as racism, whiteness and blackness were unknown concepts as we know it today, we can’t know his ‘race’ for sure. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Even very common socio-cultural concepts of today such as ‘French’, ‘German’ or ‘English’ didn’t exist in those days such that it would be silly to argue whether historical figures of those days were German or French. Same thing is valid for the white and black race as defined today.

Famous Europeans with African ancestry (1500-1900)

Below I will list some of the most famous figures of European modern history (after 1500) who happened to be black or have African ancestry, but were integral parts of European (high) society. Most of the time the African ancestry of these people is ignored by history books although acknowledged and accepted by most history scholars. I think it throws a new light on the concepts of race and the meaning of blackness in the 21st century.

Alessandro ‘il Moro’ de Medici 1510-1537
Duke of Florence


Abram Petrovich Ganibal 1696-1781
Major-general, military engineer, governor of Reval and nobleman of the Russian Empire


Anton Wilhelm Amo 1700-1775
German Philosopher


Ignatius Sancho 1729–1780
Author and abolitionist, UK

Olaudah Equiano a.k.a. Gustavus Vassa 1745-1797 Author and abolitionist, UK

Chevalier de Saint Georges 1745-1799 A famous musican, composer and swardsman of his times
Listen to his music here.

Thomas Alexandre Dumas 1762-1806 A general of the French Revolution

George Polgreen Bridgetower 1780-1860 Musician and composer
Listen and watch here


Alexandre Pushkin 1799-1837
Famous author, great-grandson of Abraham Petrovich Ganibal

Alexandre Dumas 1802-1870
French author of the world famous tale of ‘The Three Musketeers’, Thomas Alexandre Dumas’s son

John Archer 1863-1931
Presumably UK’s first black mayor, political activist

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor 1875-1912 Musician and composer
Listen to his music here