Francis Williams Portrait - Prof Fara Dabhiowala master class on the Black presence in 18th century art

William Williams (c1760) Francis Williams

Deep breath… Prof Fara Dabhiowala analysis of the V&A’s 1760 portrait of Francis Williams by William Williams is simply the best analysis of a work of art I have ever seen or read – a master class  -  period! You can see it here....

 Black Genius: Science, Race, and the Extraordinary Portrait of Francis Williams 

by Prof Fara Dabhiowala

The portrait was introduced into V& A’s collection in the 1920s when a Black presence in a painting in its collection wasn’t as valued as it is today. The work was bought for its depiction of 18thC mahogany chair and table, the Black figure was totally ignored, of absolutely no consequence, at that time. I was minded of the portrait of Toussaint Louverture which came into the V&A’s collection 1833 to be displayed as part of a number of prints depicting French Regal Military and other costumes. Here again the Black central figure - Haitian revolutionary leader, Toussaint Louverture - was seen as of no importance. How times have changed!

Toussaint Louverture (V&A collection)

Prof Fara Dabhiowala brilliant analysis gives us the tools, the ideas, the thinking that helps us reconsider and reflect on that difference. And for me it was his brilliant scholarship and excellent communication skills they really resonated with me on so many levels. His wonderful analytic deconstruction, paired with his charming wit, was a masterclass—making so many essential, important, mostly hidden, connections made manifest. I especially appreciated how he named and dated Johnson's dictionary. I've watched the video several times and will continue to do so. I really urge you too to watch Prof Fara Dabhiowala master class in the Black presence in 18th century art.

I’ve spent this year’s Black History Month presenting on Lloyds involvement and its response to its part  in the 18thC transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans to other city insurance firms. I have been keen to stress that there is no personal guilt or shame involved – that was then , this is now. The essential issue is how do we make manifest we our different from the 18th scientific racist beliefs with its dehumanisation of and brutality to Black bodies. That difference represents who we are today. This change is how we see these pictures , just like Lloyds response to its historical involvement in transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans they make real how we have changed - that was then -- the Williams and Loverture portraits were all about furniture and uniform, Lloyds did not acknowledge it role in enslavement - this is now ...we we think and act differently.

 

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)