Black Cultural Archives, 1 Windrush Square. Photo © Black Cultural Archives
communities, but we also hold these collec- tions from which we can tell more accurate and representative histories of twentieth century Britain.
The direct development of Black Cul- tural Archives can be traced through two key strands: the creation of resources for anti-racist education and the impetus to create a historical monument to black communities in the UK grounded in the idea of reparations and restitution. Taking education first, one of our best-known founders Len Garrison (1943-2003) was born in Jamaica and came to the UK in the 1950s. Garrison was a keen educational- ist and developed anti-racist educational resources for his Greater London Council funded, African Caribbean Education Resource (ACER) project. As an anti-rac- ist, Garrison argued that it was important for white and black children to be taught positive narratives about African and African Caribbean histories in order to overcome racism. Many of Black Cultural Archives’ early collections were sourced by Garrison who would visit antique and second-hand dealers, bookshops and car boot sales looking for material on the black presence in the UK (and would often find it). These early collections formed the backbone of the collection and some of this material has formed one of the largest existing collections of the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, an important, although at the time, neglected Edwardian compos- er. These early finds offered snapshots of cultural and political activity at community level. Garrison used these archival finds to develop learning resources that sought to explain key topics affecting the black com- munity, from the community perspective.
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Garrison argued that it was important for everyone; white, black and Asian to learn about positive representations of black history and culture in order to overcome racial prejudice and the affects and effects of white supremacy.
The second strand relates to visits from an African American activist, Queen Mother Moore, born Audley Moore in Louisiana in 1898. Throughout her long life, Moore was engaged in securing the rights of black people across the diaspora. In her early life Moore was a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, established by Marcus Garvey and his wife, Amy Ashwood. Moore would remain friends with Garvey but eventually left the organisation later joining the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party and finally spearheading the modern reparations movement in the US. Moore was given the honorific title, Queen Mother by members of the Ashanti peoples of Ghana due to her work with women’s groups across West Africa.
During 1981 and 1982 Queen Mother Moore was brought over to the UK to share her vision to create a series of monuments to those who were enslaved and murdered during the ‘middle passage’ of the Trans- atlantic Slave Trade, on the plantations and during the periods of colonialism and racial terror. For Garrison and our other founders, including Makeda Coaston, Imelda Inyang, and Richie Riley, Queen Mother Moore’s idea coalesced with their desires to create a community archive. Taking Moore’s idea on, these founders created the African People’s Historical Monument Foundation (UK) to “serve as the focal point for research and cul- tural development of African people – all
towards the aim of embracing our “right mind” and uniting in our common struggle.”
The APHMF(UK) created the Black Cultural Archives project to find a permanent home that would become the monument and historical repository for Black history and culture. With the sup- port of Lambeth Council and operating with one member of staff, Black Cultural Archives identified a site in Brixton in an area that was significant as one of the main sites that members of the ‘Windrush’ generation settled in Britain. The Council agreed to Black Cultural Archives developing this site on the basis
Flyer for a permanent home for the Black Cultural Archives.
April-May 2022
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