I found this excellent book about Black Britain in my university library. It tells the history of this microcosm in images. Here are a few images I have scanned if anyone is interested!
1) This was a young Shirley Bassey, who is now Dame Shirley Bassey and still going strong at 71 . One of the voices of the century of my opinion. According to the book, this photo was taken in Cardiff, Wales in 1955. Bassey is of Nigerian & English origin.
2) This man was PC Gumbs, London’s first black policeman in 1968
Looking through this book has really made me think of how at times, we can take things for granted. I have been living on and off in England for over 10 years now and just looking at the harsh injustice African and West Indian immigrants had to put up with really makes my blood boil. The book features loads more pictures of black immigrants arriving in London, pictures of the Notting Hill riots that plagued London and photos of other famous faces like Paul Robeson in England and the inimitable Malcolm X in Oxford, which can be seen below.
[...] I posted 2 images of Black Britain from this fantastic book I found in my university library on the Afrospear blog but there are more. I don’t want to get in trouble by posting too many but I cannot resist. [...]
Please have a look at Black Britain: A Photographic History (Paperback) by Paul Gilroy (Author), Stuart Hall (Author)
Fantastic range of B/W photos depicting Black History in the UK.
Thanks for book references. I’m writing a screenplay set in London 1957 and one of my characters is a Trinidadian pianist who is falsely accused of child abuse. These images help to set the scene. I’ve also been listening to an excellent CD called London is the Place for Me – a compilation.
I was born in Birmingham, England 50years ago. I lived in Handsworth until I was 9 years old. We immigrated to the United States in 1968. My Dad and Mom came to England in 1955 and 1958 respectively. My Dad never cared for England the weather and the racism he dealt with when he first came over. I had a good life from what I remember in Handsworth. I never really wore English clothes My Aunts in the U.S used to send most of my clothes when I did not wear the school uniform. The West Indians have come along way from when my parents first arrived in the U.K 50 years ago, but we still have a very long way to go. I visited U.K about 5 years ago. I still keep in touch with my next door neighbor in Birmingham who still lives there almost 50 years now from Jamaica.
The African Diaspora is beautiful. Such a wonderful tapestry of struggle, achievement, and transcendence.
Portrait Of The 1985 Handsworth Riots – Pogus Caesar – BBC1 TV . Inside Out.
Broadcast 25 Oct 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey7ijaXv6UQ
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.
Found some background information on Pogus Caesar, really interesting look at his early days.
INTERVIEW WITH THE VOICE NEWSPAPER 1989
From Tesco To The Telly: But life has been far from easy for TV’s Pogus Caesar.
To Midlanders watching him on the box, the life of television presenter Pogus Caesar must seem blessed with good fortune. But for Pogus, broadcaster and artist, life has meant hard work and years of struggle. “The public have a perception of you as they want to imagine you” he says, “but people who know me know the truth.”
Smooth talking Pogus can be seen on Sundays on Central TV’s ethnic slot, ‘Here and Now’. He interviews glamourous stars like Carmen Munroe of the new Channel 4 comedy series ‘Desmond’s. He has just bought a house and is moving to Moseley, the trendy end of Birmingham. Yet he remembers when things were different. He came from St Kitts and most of his schooling was in Birmingham. After that his prospects were similar to those of a great many Afro – Caribbeans at that time.
“I started working in Tesco, ” he explains, “putting food on the shelves. At the time I thought because I had no qualifications I would not get a good job, so I started practising art and hoped to eventually work in advertising.” He got his chance to develop his painting when he became unemployed after working as a Chef at Birmingham’s Holiday Inn Hotel. By the early 80′s he was a struggling artist, until Acafess, a black run training agency gave him his first break.
He helped form the Acafess Community Cultural Arts Scheme and exhibited his work with them throughout the Midlands. A year later he was at the Handsworth Cultural Centre working with the probation service. There art was used to bring out the neglected talents of young black offenders.
It was through his knowledge of art in the Midlands that he was able to do bits of work for Channel 4′s ‘Black on Black’ and ‘Here and Now’ for Central TV. He also helped to co produce a half hour history of black people in Birmingham for ‘Black on Black’. And when the position as a presenter at ‘Here and Now’ became vacant, Pogus was there to fill it.
“The glamour thing wears off very quickly,” Pogus mused. “It is a job, I have always had to work my way up to things. to me one stage leads on to another.”
Simon Hinds, The Voice UK 1989