Black Britain Vanley Burke, "Boy with Flag," Birmingham, England, 1969

Note: This course began its life as a short (8-week, 1-unit) course in the Fall of 1999 focussing largely on the history, theory, literature and film of the multi-racial "black" culture of the UK built by African, Caribbean and South Asian immigrants (and their descendants) in the decades since World War II.  All current course-related documents immediately below refer to the old version of the course; I'm currently in the process of revising it into a 4-unit, semester-long version. For the moment, here is the old course syllabus; the reserve reading is in progress (those registered for the class can e-mail me for the password): Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | General/Reference You should also freely explore the Web resources below, in particular Windrush Season, a very worthy site from the BBC on Black British history and culture (named after the S.S. Empire Windrush, the ship whose arrival in England from the Caribbean in July 1948 inaugurated the first wave of postwar Black and Asian immigration to the UK).  The navigation of the site is slightly mysterious, but it's worth exploring in detail.  Immediately below are selected links from within the site:

• Introductory Essay on Black British Literature by Onyekachi Wambu, editor of Empire Windrush: Fifty Years of Writing About Black Britain.
• Timelines (the postwar black presence in British literature, radio and TV--includes RealAudio files)
• • Extract from Small Island Moon, radio drama by Errol John (broadcast on the BBC, May 27, 1958--RealAudio file)
  • John LaRose reading a poem on Full House, a television program focussing on West Indian artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers (broadcast on BBC2 February 3, 1973--RealAudio file)
  • Extract from Play Mas, radio drama by Mustapha Matura (broadcast on  BBC Radio 4, May 5, 1975--RealAudio file)
  • Extract from Song of a Bluefoot Man, radio drama featuring the poetry of James Berry (broadcast on BBC Radio 4, August 26, 1996--RealAudio file)
  • Extract from C.L.R. James's novel Minty Alley, as dramatized for the radio by Margaret Busby (broadcast on BBC Radio 4, June 12, 1998--RealAudio file)
• Three poems by John Agard:  "Windrush Welcome," "Uncle Mo Steps Out," and "Remember the Ship" (click on each poem's title to hear Agard read it)
• Biographies of key figures in black British literature:  Buchi Emecheta, Ben Okri, C.L.R. James, Caryl Phillips, George Lamming, Joan Riley, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipal and Samuel Selvon.
• "What Is Windrush?" (introductory essay by Mike Phillips on blacks in Britain since 1948)
• "Arrivals" (oral histories of Windrush passengers)
• "Word a Mout'" (RealAudio files: reminiscences of early immigrants--check out all four pages)

Other sites of interest:
General/History

• Channel 4's "Untold" is a superb (and continually developing) site supporting its 1999 "Black History Season."  It has pages devoted to Britain's Slave Trade, a mutiny by British West Indian soldiers after World War I, the 1981 racial uprisings across England, and "Brown Babies"--the children of white English mothers and black American GI's during World War II.  Each unit includes a lengthy program summary and a page of related links and recommended further reading.
• A story from NPR's Morning Edition for June 22, 1998 on the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush in England (RealAudio file--highly recommended)
• How many black people are there in Britain? (a summary of statistics taken from the 1991 census)
• The Black Presence in Britain (a private site constructed by Phil Gregory)
• Generations Journey: an interactive archive of Afro-Caribbean oral history in Kirklees, West Yorkshire

Arts & Culture/Business/Current Affairs

• The Chronicle ("Britain's first Internet magazine monitoring Britain's Black urban communities")
• Black Britain Online ("the leading Black oriented Web Site in the UK, focusing on Black professionals and business leaders")
• "BLINK": The Black Information Link
• Holland Cotter, "Roots of Empire: Britain's Black Artists" (New York Times 4 December 1998)
• Transforming the Crown: African, Asian & Caribbean Artists in Britain, 1966-1996 (a traveling exhibition organized by the Franklin H. Williams Caribbean Cultural Center/African Diaspora Institute, New York)
• • Curator's Essay (by Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd), "Caribbean Artists in Britain, 1966-1996"

Race Relations/Civil Rights

• Institute of Race Relations
• • Online Resources
  • • So you think you know about racism and British black history? (an online quiz)
    • How many black people are there in Britain? (a summary of statistics taken from the 1991 census)
• Campaign Against Racism & Fascism
• • "Law, Order and the Politics of Convergence" (article on police harassment of racial and ethnic minorities in contemporary Britain)
• Commission for Racial Equality (UK Government Agency)

Theory/Criticism Stuart Hall,, Opening Remarks for an academic conference entitled "Reinventing Britain" (March 21, 1997--text and RealAudio) "'Tings and Times': Poetry, Performance and the Vogue for Black Britain," a paper I presented at a conference on "Poetry and the Public Sphere" at Rutgers University in 1998 (also appears, slightly revised, in the journal Transition #74) Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Blacks in  London" (Africana.com; originally appeared in The New Yorker)

Tibor Kalman, "Colors 4 (Race)."  Originally published in Colors magazine; now included in the exhibit "Tiboricity" at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.  Image ©M&Co

Last updated: May 29, 2000