James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, also known as James Albert, is said to be the first published black author in Britain. His autobiography, A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of …
Moments in Time - A look at history to inform the present
Moments in time is an archive of historical events, people and places.
The 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott
The Bristol Bus Boycott helped to raise awareness of racial discrimination in Britain and influenced the passing of the Race Relations Act 1965, which made “racial discrimination in public places” …
His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I
Emperor Haile Selassie ruled Ethiopia between 1930 and 1974. He steered his country into mainstream post-World War II African politics through his modernisation efforts. Ethiopia was admitted to the League …
The Zong Massacre
In 1781 over 100 enslaved Africans were thrown overboard the Zong slave ship to allow the slave owners to collect insurance money on their human commodities. This is one of …
Birth of the Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is an American white supremacist terrorist hate group founded after the American Civil War to suppress and victimise newly freed African American slaves. Over the …
The Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962
On 1 July 1962, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act came into effect, ending the automatic right of people of the British Commonwealth and Colonies to settle in the United Kingdom. The …
Sir Francis Kerr-Jarrett – Jamaican landowner
Francis Kerr-Jarrett was a landowner and sugar manufacturer in Jamaica. He served as Custos Rotulorum of Saint James Parish, Jamaica from 1933–1965. Custos rotulorum is Latin for ‘keeper of the …
Emmett Till – Life and death
The brutal abduction and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till on 28 August 1955, brought nationwide attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in Mississippi. It also spurred the emerging …
Black and Asian Soldiers in World War One
It is often thought that World War I (WW1) was a European War, fought exclusively by Europeans but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Not often mentioned is the …
Madam C J Walker
Madam C J Walker was an entrepreneur best known for inventing Black haircare products. She was a political social activist, philanthropist and the first female self-made millionaire. Early years Born …
Onesimus – the slave who helped quell the Boston smallpox outbreak
Onesimus was an enslaved West African man whose African teachings helped to reduce the impact of the smallpox outbreak in Boston, Massachusetts. Little is known about Onesimus before he was …
Claudette Colvin – the teenager that inspired Rosa Parks
You’ve heard of Rosa Parks but what do you know of Claudette Colvin? Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, …
Juneteenth
What is Juneteenth? Juneteenth is a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. It is observed annually on 19 June. It is also called Emancipation Day, or …
Tacky’s Rebellion
When the English took over the colonisation of Jamaica from the Spanish, they imported thousands of Africans as slaves to work on plantations of wealthy Englishmen. Like other colonised islands, …
Early Jamaican Maroons
Jamaican Maroons were escaped African slaves who had run away from Spanish owned plantations when the British took the Caribbean Island of Jamaica from Spain in 1655. They fled to …
Bloody Sunday – Selma to Montgomery
The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. Death and …
Abolitionists and revolutionaries – 7 Black women you should know about
Here are seven Caribbean and American women who were abolitionists, revolutionaries and activists. These women fought to free their people from the chains of slavery, discrimination and the lasting effects …
Flore Bois Gaillard – Saint Lucian revolutionary
Flore Bois Gaillard was a St Lucian runaway slave who led a band of free slaves called ‘Armée Française Dans Les Bois (French Army in the Woods). The life of …
Marie Sainte Dédée Bazile – Haitian revolutionary
Marie Sainte Dédée Bazile is notable as part of the Haitian Revolution. While there is much written about the men of the Haitian Revolution, not much is known or written …
Malcolm X visits Smethwick, West Midlands
In February 1965 civil rights campaigner, Malcolm X was in Britain to speak at the London School of Economics. Avtar Singh Jouhl, general secretary of the Indian Workers Association, invited …
Remembering the 13 young people killed in the New Cross fire
On Sunday 18 January 1981 a fire broke out in a house in New Cross Road, Deptford, South East London, killing 13 young people and marking a massive change for …
The life of Francis Barber
Most people believe that black people came to Britain after the Second World War with the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948. But Black people have had a presence …
How Haiti won its independence
0n 5 December 1492, European navigator Christopher Columbus came upon an island in the Caribbean that he claimed for Spain and called La Isla Española (“The Spanish Island”, later Anglicised …
Samuel Sharpe and the 1831 Christmas Rebellion
Samuel Sharpe instigates a rebellion On 27 December 1831, the Christmas Rebellion began at the Kensington Estate in St James, Jamaica. Samuel Sharpe was the main instigator of the 1831 …
