I Rise
Like the phoenix rising from the ashes
Moments in time is an archive of historical events, people and places.
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. The slave trade brought vast wealth to British ports and merchants but conditions were horrific. Enslaved people were transported on the ‘Middle Passage’ of the triangular trade route. Many …
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 decades their targets have grown to include Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Catholics, Jews, atheists and Muslims as well as immigrants and homosexuals. On 24 …
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 Act applied stringent restrictions on the entry of Commonwealth citizens into Britain. Only those with work permits (which were typically only for high-skilled workers, such …
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 rolls. It is a civic post in Jamaica that involved helping to maintain law and order. The Kerr-Jarrett Family Francis Moncrieff Kerr-Jarrett was born …
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 civil rights movement in America. Emmett Till – Early life Emmett Louis Till was born on 25 July 1941 the only son of Mami Carthan …
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 fact that there were Caribbean, Asian and African soldiers who served in the war. Walter Tull is the most celebrated Black British soldier of the …
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 Sarah Breedlove on 23 December 1867, Madam C J Walker was the first child in her family to be born into freedom after the signing …
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 enslaved other than he was Coromantee (also known as Akan people from modern Ghana). Like many enslaved people his original name, age and date of …
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, 15-year-old Claudette did the exact same thing. Early life Claudette Austin was born in Birmingham, Jefferson County, to Mary Jane Gadson and C P Austin …
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 Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day. The term Juneteenth is a combination of the words June and nineteenth. History of Juneteenth During the American Civil …
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, the slaves rebelled regularly. The most well-known Jamaican slave rebellions are the 1831 Christmas rebellion, led by Samuel Sharpe and the Maroon Wars led …
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 the mountainous areas of Jamaica, where it was difficult for their owners to follow and catch them. There they formed independent communities as free men …
The Notting Hill Race riots were the result of a campaign of attacks on the Caribbean residents in a bid to drive them out of their homes and ultimately out of Britain. Much like the 1919 race riots, the growing Black presence in Britain was a major factor in these events. Although dubbed the Notting Hill race …
A 32-year-old black man from Antigua named Kelso Cochrane was brutally murdered in a racist attack in the early hours of 17 May 1959. After receiving treatment at Paddington Hospital for a fractured thumb, Kelso Cochrane was walking home shortly after midnight when a gang of white youths surrounded him, called him derogatory names, beat …
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 discrimination Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in voting based on race, efforts by civil rights organisations such as the Student …
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 of slavery. Some took up arms, some used strategy and some used the pen. The women discussed in this video are: Sojourner Truth Sojourner Truth …
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 Flore Bois Gaillard Flore Bois Gaillard was an enslaved biracial woman owned by a man known as Master Bellac. For several years she worked on …
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 about the women who helped to emancipate the people of the island. Born near Cap-Francais (now Cap-Hattian) to enslaved parents, we rely on oral history …
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 him to speak at Birmingham University and visit Smethwick, a small town in the West Midlands, UK. Smethwick was a hotbed of racial tension. Just …
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 black people in Britain. Thirteen people died in the New Cross fire and another, committed suicide 18 months later in July 1983, aged 20, having …
Sybil Phoenix is a community leader who has devoted her life to helping other people, especially in Lewisham, the town she made home. Early years She was born Sybil Theodora Marshall on 21 June 1927 in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana). Sybil’s mother died when she was nine, and, as her father worked in the …
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 in Britain for as far back as Roman times. Even closer in history, there were Blacks in Britain during and after slavery. If white British …
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 as Hispaniola). Haiti colonised by Spain Spain colonised the island and enslaved the native Taino and Ciboney people. Forced to mine gold under brutal working …
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 Slave Rebellion. Although he was a slave, he was also a leader of the native Baptists in Montego Bay. This enabled him to travel and …
