Review: A Book of Secrets by Kate Morrison

My introduction to Kate Morrison was her paper 'Go back & fetch what you forgot': building a fictional character from the archives presented at What’s Happening in Black British History V Workshop in October 2016 which included her announcing she had a book deal that was A Book of Secrets, all while cradling her sleeping baby!

Kate Morrison presenting on building a fictional character from the archives

The approach she discussed at that workshop produced this work of fiction based on the lives of black Africans who lived in Tudor England working in domestic services and as craftsmen and women. Morrison’s fiction contrasts with the facts in Miranda Kaufmann’s Black Tudors: The Untold Story and Onykea Nubia's Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, Their Presence, Status and Origins who both describe the African presence from their researches in the archives. Morrison, with equal academic rigour to researching the archives takes the facts from her diligent scholarship and through her masterful storytelling skills brings the black African Tudor presence to life making it real, making it human, giving it flesh and blood with emotions and desires.

Her book is not just the story of the life and times of Suky/Susan Charlewood/Nsowah a black woman and her struggle for survival in Elizabethan England, it is much richer, deeper and wider telling stories of class, religion, death, love and sex set against the spiritual and secular suspicions and fears of the day, telling the story of a black woman making her way seeking to understand her heritage and find her true identity in a world of national and international, brutal religious strife and military intrigue. Morrisons skilfully examines and reveals the political and religious climate of the time, as England wanted its own sovereignty not that of the Pope, not unlike the demands of the Leavers in Britain’s BREXIT debate.

Morrison’s work demonstrates the importance of researching black British history not just as an academic exercise but to bring that research to light, making it accessible to a wider, non- academic audience and despite the duties of motherhood she brought her story to life for the WHBBH audience and now to a much wider one. Here we have her critical interrogation of the archives coupled with her innovative imagination creating a wholly plausible, readable work of fiction based on fact - a page turner - I loved it - look forward to the film.  #FullyRecommended

Review: The Isle of Wight's Missing Chapter by James Rayner

The Isle of Wight’s Missing Chapter by James Rayner is a fascinating book with brief sketches of the many men and women of diverse ethnicities who have visited or stayed on the Island since the 18th century. It challenges that version of the Island’s history, which to date has been pretty much exclusively white and British. Rayner, through his targeted research of; local history books, newspapers, biographies and official records,  is able to fill in what he calls ‘this missing chapter from the Island’s past’.

From my own personal black British history interests, I was intrigued to find the black Tudor Jaques Francis lived on the island, as did Fanny Eaton  the muse to Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who Rossetti painted her in ‘Beloved’ and also that the abolitionist Oldudah Equiano spent six months there.

I found the book very readable. Essentially this is a listing, but Rayner creates a very readable narrative, his writing style connects the diverse lives in a very clear, orderly manner, making the book very accessible.

I recommend this thought-provoking book particularly as it is a model for anyone in Britain’s other 182 islands that make up these British Islands to create their Missing Chapter in doing so show that history is never a closed book.

Reparation Debate at University of London

UCL Debating Society

Should Britain pay Reparations to its Former Colonies?

30th September 2019

The invitation to speak at University of London’s debating society came out of the blue just like the Durham invitation. I accepted without hesitation as it was chance to apply the things, I had learnt from losing the same debate in Durham.

Lecture theatre 4.04 LT2 in the Cruciform Building was packed, not sure if that was because that this was the first debate of the academic year or whether it was the subject but the room was rammed with people sitting on the stairs and on the floor in front of the stage. 

The day before I had prepared a 15 minute speech, only to receive an email over the weekend reminding me I had 7 minutes (Note to self -  remind yourself of the rules of debate !) I had a job cutting it back to 7mins so I left it a 10 minutes. On the night I negotiated with the Chairman and the other speakers the additional 3 minutes.

There were points of order aka statements challenging what the speaker was saying while the speaker was at the lectern, the speaker could take the point of order or ignore it. I took mine while others declined, adding to tension as speakers spoke on ignoring attempts at intervention.

At the end of the four speeches members of the audience came up to the lectern to a make 3-minute statement FOR or AGAINST the motion and in one case both (as they could see both sides and wanted to make a case for each!).

Proposition (FOR):

Michael Ohajuru Cultural Historian, and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies 

Callum Nimmo President of the UCL Debating  Society (stood in at the last minute as scheduled speaker did not show up)

Opposition (AGAINST):

Dr Kim Wagner Senior Lecturer in British Imperial History at QMUL

Spencer Shia President of the UCL Conservative Society and fellow debater

FOR

I developed the Malcom X argument in which he compares slavery to a knife in the back, you don’t absolve yourself by simply pulling the knife out – abolishing slavery – you need to heal the would left by slavery – pay Reparations. Then went onto consider Hillary Beckles idea of Reparation as a conversation between equals to resolve the neglect and underdevelopment. Emphasised aid is not the answer as this is tied to the West as for every 1$ the West gives in aid it receives 24$ back. Callum spoke of the need to correct a wrong. The owners were given compensation for their loss of property – the enslaved - while the enslaved received nothing. Art had been stolen and needed to be returned as part of the Reparation 

AGAINST

There is no need for Reparation as slavery happened some time ago. Paying it would only be political ritual – a show on moral grounds - in fact it would be tokenism. There is no need for Reparation its only blood money to make Britain feel better- a gesture to show British exceptionalism and its greatness – you cannot repair the past. Further most of the colonies have corrupt governments so the money would be wasted. We are not responsible today for what has gone before.

And why give back the art as it reaches a wider audience here in Britain? If Britain did give it back the art would be mis used by the Governments to reinforce origin and nation creation myths which might favour one group over another causing division. Further the people who live in the land today do not own art that was created by those who previously lived on that land.

Conclusion 

From Durham I was ready for all these arguments apart from the art which did not occur in Durham.

Moral argument – the owners were compensated why not the slaves 

Not my problem/responsibility – many of the institutions you benefit from today were founded with profits for slavery eg National Gallery, Lloyds Insurance 

Corrupt Governments – the conversation cannot just be at Government level look at Glasgow and Cambridge Universities Reparation activity.

Art better here – these are cultural, religious artefacts not art,  it was looted, stolen and should given back to where it came from.

I was the last to speak, closed quoting Obama – vote for your hopes not your fears  - attempting to counter the negativity and concerns in Opposition’s arguments 

Outcome 

We won, we moved the room in favour of the motion.

Before the debate just under half the room at 48% was FOR the motion after the debate it went up 8 points to 56%,  a clear majority of the room was now FOR the motion.

Thanks

I want to thank the President and Vice-President of UCL debating society for inviting me (the President did a brilliant job stepping in at such short notice FOR the motion). The UCL students were great - very welcoming, respectful and listened attentively. I very much enjoyed the debate. I was particularly heartened by the many who came up to me afterwards shook my hand, congratulated and thanked me and special thanks to the two sistas who supported me throughout the debate with fist pumps and big smiles as I made my points!

Review: Temi Odumosu’s 'Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour' (2018)

I was delighted to review Temi Odumosu’s Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour (2018). I first became aware of Temi’s work from a free handout at the National Gallery’s information desk The ‘Image of Black’ in National Gallery Paintings (2004), three A4 black and white, photocopied sheets. The contrast in presentation and content between her latest work and that National Gallery handout is palpable - her book is hard-backed, with mainly colour images and it’s not free, it’s £100 but more on that price later.

Temi’s ground-breaking free handout at the National Gallery, sadly not available today and its supporting website is now only available via the Wayback machine. Her work was one of the inspirations for my own series of Image of the Black in London Galleries tours. So with her books great looks and my knowledge of Temi’s work I was looking forward to reading her book.

Sample page

The very first thing that strikes you about Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour are its manifest production values – it looks stunning. Page after page of beautiful full colour cartoons with supporting detailed images in black and white as well as colour. Can one imagine Peter Fryer’s Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain, the seminal text on the black presence in Britain being published today without a single picture? Even when pictures had to be there to support a black history text as in David Dabydeen’s revelatory commentary on the black presence in William Hogarth’s work Hogarth's Blacks: Images of Blacks in Eighteenth Century English Art, they were small, not easy to interpret black and white images. At the other end of the scale there is the monumental, multi volume, much celebrated The Image of the Black in Western Art which is both scholarly and full of colour images with many detailed images, which I have reviewed in a previous post. Lessons seemed to have been taken from both as it has the authority and scholarship ambitions of Fryer and Dabydeen with the visual impact intentions of The Image of the Black in Western Art.

Her book not only looks good it is extremely easy to navigate with its simple but effective content sections: introduction, four chapters and an epilogue. Each section has its all its footnotes grouped together at its end, making them easy to find and follow up, without cluttering the pages, adding to the book’s visual appeal and easy access. Its physical presentation and logical content arrangement make it a joy to read and to browse. It has the visual aspirations of Dabydeen’s book without suffering the drawbacks of its small, often hard to interpret, black and white reproductions.

In her introduction Temi recognises that nothing ruins a good joke like an explanation of why it should be funny and the irony in knowing that the prints were not meant for her eyes or for rigorous academic deliberation. She ‘ruins’ the jokes and in doing so delivers a thoroughly perceptive, interrogation and analysis of the visual text.

Cartoons are time capsules of not just history but of culture, fashion, taste, and language. Cartoons, even a few years old, can be challenging to interpret without a thorough knowledge of all that was happening in the news at the time as cartoonist conflate contemporary news, thoughts and ideas to make their points. Temi  deflates and unpicks the eighteenth century histories to be found in these cartoons through a masterclass of careful, detailed analysis. She shows ‘how artists use Africans as stock types and what they came to signify in the heated comic domain of the revolutionary period,’

I was particularly impressed by her analysis of the portrayal of African women - a key theme of the book - and her deconstruction of Cruikshank and Marayat’s The New Union Club.

Detail from Cruikshank and Marayat’s A Meeting of Creditor

Considering African women in the cartoons she exposes the hypocrisy to found in them, which mocked the physical attractiveness of African women which was rooted in the incompatibility of blackness and beauty, while at the same time Englishmen found them desirable. This dichotomy is exemplified in the depiction of the prostitute Black Moll’s bill to the philandering Prince of Wales for services in Cruikshank’s A Meeting of Creditors. Temi explains Cruickshank depiction is a loaded double entendre, with Black Moll’s list headed with the entry ‘Black Joke 300’. Black Joke refers to a bawdy comic song about an Englishwoman’s vagina, the cartoon coarsely identifying Moll as the ‘joke’ of the prince’s decadence at the same time suggesting the absurdity of her monetary claim. This is typical of Temi’s close, revealing analysis of the black female figure’s depiction which runs throughout the book.

Detail from The New Union Club

The New Union Club analysis develops her examination of Cruikshank and Marayat’s a ‘black joke’, which I first saw in The Slave in European Art: From Renaissance Trophy to Abolitionist Emblem edited by Massing, and McGrath (2012). This time it has even deeper research and with more reflections on the variety of attitudes and ideas associated with Africans. She unpacks the metaphors and points out the stereotypes exemplified by the spotted baby wearing a bonnet who suckles on the breast of an African woman behind Wilberforce. Temi tells us this spotted child may reveal the outcomes of miscegenation or perhaps more ominously is showing the signs of sexually transmitted disease. In doing so she gives insight into Cruickshank and Marayat’s anti-black pro slavery minds that are revealed in many characters and their grotesque representations in the cartoon.

Now let’s look at the price tag on the hardback, £100. At first that can seem a high price to pay,  however black history scholarship and study has moved on since 2004 when Temi’s listing was given away free at the National Gallery. Both Fryer’s and Dabydeen’s black and white publications would have benefited greatly from the production values to be found in Temi’s monumental work. Maybe having seen what can be done to depict black British history this might inspire their publishers to produce new editions. That price enables the publisher to create a work not just with the academic rigour to be found in Fryer’s and Dabydeen’s books but also with the beauty and wonder of The Image of the Black in Western Art, making Temi’s work not just a scholarly, informative, revealing black history book but a really beautiful, coffee-table art monograph. It will have a place not just in an academic library but it is equally at home on any coffee table around which a passion for black history is shared and debated. I thoroughly enjoyed reading, studying and just looking at Temi’s Africans in English Caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes White Humour and so, unreservedly recommended it.