Black British History at the British Musuem Reading Room

Reading Room at the British Museum 

I was delighted to find that the Reading Room at the British Museum was open. It’s been closed for several years now, so I couldn’t believe I had the chance to step inside and see the great dome once again. This place holds deep significance for me, particularly when it comes to Black British history. It was here, in 1912, that Marcus Garvey gained access, thanks to a ticket given to him by Duse Mohamed Ali, a property owner who could secure such a pass. Garvey had been working for Ali on The African Times and Orient Review, and it was here where Garvey spent time studying.

One of the books he read was Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington, at the time a bestseller and motivational guide that championed self-help, education, hard work, and self-reliance as the keys to success for Black people. It was Washington’s embodiment of the American Dream—work hard, and you’ll succeed. Garvey, absorbing these ideas, found inspiration in the possibilities education and self-reliance could offer.

Washington’s message, that Black people should uplift themselves from within their own communities because no one else would do it for them, resonated deeply with Garvey. This became a cornerstone of Garvey’s vision, leading him to form the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The very word “improvement” in its name could be traced back to Washington’s ideals of hard work, self-reliance, and education.

Standing in the Reading Room that day, now part of the British Library, I felt an overwhelming sense of awe. This space had literally changed the course of Black history. To be there, where Garvey himself , with the support of Duse Mohamed Ali once studied the works of Booker T. Washington to develop the ideas to create a better world for Black folk, was a great experience, Garvey's historic presence  challenging what Malcolm X  said, “if you want to hide something from Black people, put it in a book.”

Black English Folk Music & The Sorrow Songs

 I didn’t think there was such a thing as Black English folk music, but now, thanks to Angeline Morrison and The Sorrow Songs, I think differently. Black English folk music is very much a thing, a very relevant thing.

Back in the 1980s, I stopped considering Black folk as part of the English folk tradition, given their black-faced Morris dancers, which its practitioners claimed had nothing to do with racism, Jim Crow, or minstrelsy. For me, English folk music was the trope of grown bearded white men in Aran sweaters with their fingers in their ears singing folk songs and sea shanties.

My ideas changed following an invitation by the author J T Williams to attend the book launch of Mary L. Shannon’s Billy Waters Is Dancing: Or How a Black Sailor Found Fame in Regency Britain. Billy Waters was formerly a slave who gained his freedom by joining the Royal Navy, where he lost a leg, eventually earning his living and some notoriety as a fiddle-playing beggar and singer on the streets of London. He died in 1823. I knew of Billy Waters from producing an eponymous podcast for the Black Presence in British Portraiture.  I plan to write a review of the book but for now I've been diverted thru discovering Black English folk. The event was packed with over 200 people, and there was music.

The Sorrow Songs Band

It was that music – the band and songs they played – that made me appreciate that there could be such a thing as Black English folk music.

Angeline Morrison’s Jump Billy, specially written for the Billy Waters Is Dancing launch, was played by The Sorrow Songs Band: Vocals - Angeline Morrison, Violin - Hamilton Gross, Banjo - Clarke Camilleri, Concertina - Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne, and conversations with those musicians afterward completely changed my thinking on Black English folk music in particular and contemporary English folk music in general.

The Black presence could be seen in the band’s name, taken from the title of Angeline Morrison’s award-winning 2022 album The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of the Black British Experience. An article in The Guardian on its release whichcompletely passed me by, despite being a subscriber and daily reader.

It describes Angeline as bringing to light the overlooked history of Black British people through original folk songs, blending traditional instruments and a cappella singing. She captivates her audience with her quiet intensity, offering a stark contrast to the conventional, jovial folk performances I was more familiar with. In it Angeline talks about aiming to fill the gaps in the British folk canon by sharing stories of Black ancestors, influenced by her own heritage and experiences, which Angeline makes viscerally real through her soft, melodic voice in the most hauntingly beautiful way in The Sorrow Songs.

Angeline Morrison The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of the Black British Experience,
Topic Records (2022)

I have been listening to it repeatedly since I downloaded it last week. It opens with the deeply sad and moving Unknown African Boy (d1830), written from the perspective of the mother of an unknown Black boy, about eight years old, whose body was found and listed among cargo like palm oil, elephant tusks, silver dollars, and gold dust, and is buried in St Martin's churchyard, Isles of Scilly. The album goes on to tell the tales of many Black Britons, some known to me, such as Ignatius Sancho, John Ystumllyn (I have the rose named after him in my garden), Charles Wooton, and Mary Seacole. Others were new to me: Moll O’Bedlam (with her ‘mad hair’ who died in prison); Fanny Johnson (a servant whose hand was kept by the family she worked for); Evaristo Muchovela (buried in the same grave as his master). All making manifest the complexity and diversity of the Black presence in British history

From its name and cover the album connects with the Black and the Black British Experience. Its name  is taken from the closing chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois' 1903 The Souls of Black Folk, Chapter XIV: Of the Sorrow Songs, where Du Bois reflects on the significance of Negro spirituals, or Sorrow Songs as he calls them, as expressions of the Black slave's soul and experience. Exactly what Angeline does for Black Britons through her compositions, reflecting on and empathizing with the lived experiences of Black folk over the centuries. While its cover features the image of an angelic little Black May Queen taken from a World War Two Colonial Office propaganda film now in the BFI collection Springtime in an English Village (1944). There is a beautifully illustrated downloadable annotated lyric book with pictures and stories behind all the songs on The Sorrow Songs.

The album’s songs and lyric book make an informative, emotional, and very accessible introduction to the history of Black people in England. Together, they make  The Sorrow Songs an excellent companion to any of the texts written on Black British history: David Olusoga’s Black and British: A Forgotten History, Hakim Adi’s African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History, The Oxford Companion to Black British History, and Peter Fryer’s seminal Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain.

Angeline Morrison and The Sorrow Songs made Black English folk music real for me, which I will now continue to follow. I unreservedly recommend the album to those who want to experience Black English folk music and some very real Black British history through music.

FOOTNOTE (24th June 2024)

By coincidence on the same day I published this post the Daily Telegraph had the following article :

It's behind a paywall however you can read it here as well as the comments which are sadly so predictable.

One of the first indications of the African slave trade during the Renaissance in Europe?

 

Annibale Carracci Portrait of an African Woman  circa ca1560

From the Louvre Abu Dhabi Collection has the note :

Although fragmentary, this portrait is striking for the directness of the woman’s gaze. She is richly dressed in the style fashionable at the Medici court in the 1560s. This portrait is one of the first indications of the African slave trade during the Renaissance in Europe.

"one of the first indications of the African slave trade during the Renaissance in Europe." hmmm...

I'd welcome a chat with who ever wrote that to discuss:

1 What is the evidence of slavery in the image ? 

2 What pictures they compare it with to make this one of the first? 

I could/would challenge both.

From Open University Starter Pack in 2004 to Honorary Doctorate in 2024

Open University Honorary Doctorate (DUniv)

Barbican Centre, London

22nd March 2024

Michael I. Ohajuru 

 

DUniv (Open University,2024), FRSA (2022), Senior Fellow Institute of Commonwealth Studies (2017), BA (Hons) (Open University, 2008), BSc (Hons) (Leeds University, 1974)

Images awaiting further study.....

 https://museedunouveaumonde.larochelle.fr/au-dela-de-la-visite/autour-des-expositions/une/entrez-dans-lhistoire-317  

https://boydellandbrewer.com/blog/medieval-history-and-literature/confronting-the-changeling-saint-bartholomews-darkest-timeline/

Confronting the Changeling: Saint Bartholomew’s Darkest Timeline - Boydell and Brewer The Medieval Changeling by Rose A Sawyer provides the most thorough examination of medieval changeling discourse to date. boydellandbrewer.com

(Unanswered) Anonymous petition addressed to the ‘Lord arch Bishop of London’. 4 August 1723

 Part of the Enslavement: Voices from the Archives Exhibition....

Anonymous petition addressed to the Bishop of London  

4 August 1723  

FP XVII ff. 167-168.

To The Right Reverend father in God my Lord Bishop of London

This coms to satisfy your honour that there is in this Land of Virginia a sort of people that are called mulattoes which are Baptised and brought up in the way of the Christian faith and followers the ways and rules of the Church of England and some of them has white fathers and some white mothers and there is in this Land a Law or act which keeps and makes them and their seed slaves forever. 
 
And most honoured Sir amongst the rest of your charitable acts and deeds we your humble and poor parishioners do beg Sir your aid and assistance in this one thing which as I do understand in your Lordship's [gift?] which is that your honour will by the help of our suffering Lord, King George and the rest of the rulers, will release us out of this cruel bondage and this we beg for Jesus Christ's Sake who has commanded us to seek first the kingdom of God and all things shall be added on to us and here it is to be noted that one brother is a slave to another and one sister to another which is quite out of the way and as for me myself, 
 
I am my brothers slave but my name is secret and here it is to be noted again that we are commanded to keep Holy the Sabbath day and we do hardly know when it comes for our task masters are has hard with us as the Egyptians was with the Children of Israel.
 
God be merciful unto us.
 
here follows our Sevarity and Sorrowfull Sarvice we are hard used...
 
my Riting is vary bad I whope yr honour will take the will for the deede I am but a poore SLave that writt itt and has no other time butt Sunday and hardly that att Sumtimes
 
September the 8th 1723
 
To the Right Reverrand father in god my Lord arch bishup of London these with care
wee dare nott Subscribe any mans name to this for feare of our masters for if they knew that wee have Sent home to your honour wee Should goo neare to Swing upon the gallass tree

Casta, Caste and Classification Event

De Espanol y Negra produce Mulato  (A Spaniard and a Black produce a Mule)
at the conservation studio

Last November I received an email out of the blue inviting me to be a guest speaker at The Origins of Caste event along with a few background links about the Casta project and paintings. I’d never heard of Casta paintings so wasn’t sure this would be for me however once I read Tara Munroe’s Casta story in the Guardian, how she first came across this 18th century Black presence in a “stack of discarded oil paintings” in Leicester Museum’s basement - I was in!

 

Casta paintings were painted in the 18th century Mexico by dual heritage artists to depict and name the progeny of different intermarriages between Whites, Indians and Blacks and their resultant off springs’ marriages. The series of sixteen paintings are rooted in the racist white supremacy beliefs of the white Spanish colonists.

Casta Paintings 

The subsequent invitation from Tara Munroe's  heritage and arts organisation Opal 22 turned into three memorable days in Leicester – looking at, talking about and debating on Casta painting then eventually presenting my views on Casta paintings and Tara’s remarkable discovery in Leicester Museum basement.  In addition to me, I was in the company of three academics with an interest in and passion for Casta paintings – Ilona Katzew , Department Head and  Curator, Latin American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Dr Susan Deans-Smith, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Texas Austin, Professor Rebecca Earle, Department of History, Warwick University.

The first day - and for me the high point  - was spent in Annabelle Monaghan's wonderful conservation studio with the others looking at the works being carefully, meticulosulsy ...and have to say it, lovingly conserved. A great experience - honoured -  to see how the paintings are being painstakingly, literally being brought back to life.  The colour and detail revealed as the layers of old varnish and the paint from previous restorations is slowly, delicately removed, square millimetre by square millimetre, was astonishing. (here's a Facebook story from Opal 22 summarising the day)

There was much discussion on the quality of the original work now made manifest by the conservation. We also discussed the poor-quality retouching and additions the conservation revealed. For me the vase with cup and saucer in sitting on top in lower right of De Espanol y Negra produce Mulato  (A Spaniard and a Black produce a Mule) was an addition, as neither seem to fit into the composition both in terms of positioning and colour. While  on Indios otomies queue ban a la feria  ( Native Indians going to the market) what looks like one chicken being held by the young boy, on cleaning we can now clearly see he’s actually holding three chickens! 

 

 De Espanol y Negra produce Mulato  (A Spaniard and a Black produce a Mule)
(detail)

The following day was spent with each of us giving our views – to camera -  on the paintings and  their conservation. I discussed the white supremacy to found in them and how those ideas moved from the Spanish to the English colonists in the 18th century  and are still with us today in the evil that is colourism and the expression ‘mixed race’ implying there is a pure race.

The third and final day was a series of academic presentations – Casta , Caste and Classification - chaired by the facilitator Cheryl Garvey. Tara opened the meeting with a brief review of her journey and her vision for the Exhibition to be held later this year,  Ilona Katzew gave a review of the history and development of the genre- casta paintings, Dr Susan Deans-Smith considered the purpose and market for the paintings, Professor Rebecca Earle, presented us with the history and provenance of Leicester’s Casta paintings, finally I presented my ideas on the colonial and imperialist interpretations of the works. 

Casta, Caste & Classification - Friday 24th Feb 2023

The discussions in the conservation studio and the pieces to camera will be remixed and made into film which will be on show as part of the Casta Painting Exhibition later this year, where the narratives surrounding the Casta Paintings will be reframed informed by work done at the Casta , Caste and Classification  event presenting  the paintings to the public with a contemporary narrative, reflecting society today -  I look forward to it !