Abstract
Hakim Adi’s edited volume Black British History: New Perspectives provides a valuable contribution to the growing field of Black history in Britain. As a history that has been largely hidden, it is also of necessity a history of the efforts to obscure, minimize and position Black presence and actions in ways that substantiate White hegemony.
In his introduction, Adi provides an illuminating overview of the scholarship and the evidence on the African presence in Britain from pre-history through the medieval and early modern periods, to 20th century developments and current work to reclaim this presence. Nubia’s chapter, on Africans in early modern England, contests the notion of an historical ‘sacred white space’, uncovering a black presence and sense of agency and ‘self-authenticated black identity in the framing of their own nomenclature. Corlett’s chapter of the ambiguous relation to ‘freedom’ among Black servants in England reveals how, by the 18th century, ‘colonial power relations were imported into the metropole’: a line of argument reminiscent of Cooper and Stoler’s (1997) contention that European modernity was forged as much in the colonies as in the metropole.
Focusing on the 20th century, Siblon examines the deployment of Black troops in World War 1 and the burial and commemorative practices surrounding their dead. Here it is illuminating how their contribution, sacrifice and memory has been disavowed and erased; Siblon also highlights the intentionality of that erasure. In nice juxtaposition, John’s chapter examines the arguments and political analyses of radical Black internationalists in the inter-war period, and their opposition to the conscription of Black colonial subjects into the war against Hitler’s Germany. In short, they refused to fight for a European freedom premised on their own subordination.
Addressing the challenges of black immigrant communities in the context of post-war labour shortages, Searle focuses on race-related unrest in the West Midlands in 1949, as tensions developed between immigrant workers from the Caribbean and Poland living in government hostels. It appears that the Poles were the aggressors, yet the official response was imbued with anxiety about an excess Caribbean presence. These anxieties were later to emerge as a feature of the Thatcher government, characterised by anti-immigration policies and sentiment, and enhanced police powers. In this context, Pierre analyses the New Cross Fire in SE London, in which 13 black teenagers died. This tragedy was unacknowledged by the government and community demands to investigate the incident as a possible racist arson attack were ignored.
A strong theme throughout the volume is that Black history is inevitably world history. Perry, for example, examines the intellectual exchanges between Black activists, who argued there was a urgent need to reach beyond nationally defined ‘race issues’, and those in the US during the 1960s and 1970s. Johnson documents the political engagement of the post-Bandung Black Liberation Front in the early 1970s revealing a vigorous proliferation of radical Black organizations rooted in Pan-Africanism and in strategies intent on protecting and supporting Black communities. Steven’s focus on the ideas and practices of Pan-Africanist organisations, between 1975 and 2015, stresses the role of Black cultural nationalism in their aims and ethos; Stanford-Xosei’s chapter places Black world history at the heart of the rationale, activism and urgency of demands for reparatory justice. Zembe’s contribution rounds off the volume extremely well by drawing critical attention to the challenges – equally rooted in conflictive colonial and post-colonial history – that hamper efforts to form a cohesive immigrant community among diasporic Zimbabweans in Britain; indeed, ‘imported’ historical ethnic tensions prove difficult to resolve.
An understanding of Black history in Britain and of the ways in which it has been minimized/erased is crucial for critical social policy, as it confronts issues rooted in historically accumulated structural inequalities, marginalization and the racisms embedded in social, political and institutional environments. This became vividly evident in the recent exposure of what has been a longstanding scandal of the treatment of the Windrush generation and their children and it illustrated the tenuous relation of Black Britons to citizenship and to a racist state – an inquiry into this debacle emphasized the fact that institutional ignorance about Black British history was a central factor.
Exposure, however, is no guarantee of action; equally, in the inevitable inquiry into the British government’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic that is to come, the contributions of BAME people and their unequal socio-environmental exposure to the disease – in their over-representation in low-income populations and as frontline/key workers – will be recognised at the same time as immigration ‘reform’ proceeds. As Stanford-Xosei argues, the case for reparatory justice continues to build.
One criticism of Black British History is that it would be encouraging to see more specific attention and recognition given to the vital importance of Black women in social, political and community struggle Perhaps also there may have been a more critical and analytical focus on, for example, Black cultural nationalist alternatives and their potential for homogenization and for containing their own suppressions and exclusions That said, Adi’s collection is excellent volume in that it furnishes important and fascinating perspectives from exciting scholars and activists whose engagement with Black world history illuminates the present.