Author Archive
Sunday 24th Apr – Black Panthers: Vanguard of the revolution – film showing
Preston Black History Group would like to invite you and a friend to a presentation of the documentary film The Black Panthers. A film produced by Stanley Nelson.
Sunday 24th April 2022. .The venue is Jalgos sports and social club. Rose Street Preston. PR1 3XY. Start time 16.00 hrs
This is the first full length documentary to explore the Black Panther party, it’s significance to the broader political and cultural awakening for black people, weaving a treasure trove of rare archival footage with the voices of the people who were there: the police, FBI informants, journalists, white supporters and detractors, the Black Panthers who remained loyal to the party, and those who left .
Black Panthers: Vanguard of the revolution is an essential part of black history.
This is a free presentation and is supported by
Unite (The Union) N/W 0056 Bamber Bridge and Leyland branch
Please feel free to share this invitation with your family and friends
Memorial to Zong: until Sep 2021
Lubaina Himid’s fantastic exhibition, Memorial to Zong, is currently at the Lancaster Maritime Museum. Turner Prize Winner, Professor Lubaina Himid’s exhibition is a powerful re-interpretation of the history and brutality of the slave trade and remembers the Zong Massacre.
Professor Alan Rice, together with the team at the museum and a variety of contributors, has developed a virtual exhibition which is now available online at https://visitlancaster.org.uk/whats-
Arts and Activism Webinars
Fantastic series of webinars from IBAR (Institute for Black Atlantic Research at UCLan) and PBHG. Arts – Activism in the Age of Black Lives Matter Webinar Series – https://ibaruclan.com/arts-and-activism-in-the-age-of-black-lives-matter-webinar-series/ Showcasing some of our own Preston based artist/activists Nadine J Knight and Phil Kaila, Jade Montserrat IBAR Artist in Residence as well as Tayo Aluko from Liverpool and the Othello Project at the Royal Shakespeare Co. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity.
Tuesday 8 June, 16:30-17:30 | Tayo Aluko
Tuesday 15 June, 16:30-17:30 | The Othello Project
Tuesday 22 June, 16:30-17:30 | Nadine Knight
Tuesday 29 June, 16:30-17:30 | Jade Montserrat
Tuesday 6 July, 16:30-17:30 | Phil Kaila
St Vincent Relief Drive
PBHG Chair has been active in spearheading the St Vincent Relief Drive in Preston with other community groups, collecting essential supplies at Jalgos Sports and Social Club. The supplies will be taken to Liverpool for transport to St Vincent ASAP to alleviate the hardships caused to the 16,000 people who have had to flee their ash-covered communities after the eruption of the La Soufriere volcano in early April.
Uncovering Black History Course
Four week course exploring British Black History with Linford Sweeney – contact 07932717907 for details
Wisdom Shared: Relearning the Past Together at the Harris in Preston: Oct 2020 – August 2021
Artist Bernie Velvick has been a member of Preston Black History Group since before it became a constituted group. The opportunity to create the Wisdom Shared artwork trail at the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston in collaboration with the other members of the group has been an ideal way for us to celebrate our tenth anniversary and to reflect on the journeys we have made, both individually and together, to explore our shared history.
The full texts of everyones contributions and a video with Joseph and Bernie talking about the project is here on the Harris website https://www.theharris.org.uk/product/preston-black-history-group-wisdom-shared-trail/
In the artworks our group members words are in conversation with the Harris collections, the building, and the City of Preston through the gallery windows. The Harris have changed their labels in the displays about ‘Cotton’ and ceramics to widen the narratives and to include references to the cotton and sugar trades and the enslaved people whose contribution has been left out until now.
The Harris will be open to the public in May 2021 so you can visit our trail.
Here’s a preview.
CFP: The Anthropocene and Race Conference
Image credit: Jade Montserrat. ‘You’ll have to be on your toes to survive these parts.’
More info from IBAR https://ibaruclan.com/cfp-the-anthropocene-and-race-conference/
Feb 05 Friday
09h15-9h30
The University of Central Lancashire is hosting ‘The Anthropocene and Race’ conference in February 2021. The conference explores the connections among geology and culture, environment, ideology and inequality, memory and displacement, deep time and the far future.
Keynote addresses will be given by:
Professor Kei Miller, University of Exeter
Novelist, poet, author of Augustown and In Nearby Bushes
Forward Prize and OCM Bocas Prize winner
Syaman Rapongan
Novelist, essayist, Tao culture activist
China Times Prize for Literature and Golden Tripod Award winner
Taiwan Ocean Research Institute researcher
Dr Karen McCarthy Woolf, Fulbright All-Disciplines Scholar, UCLA
Ecocritic, poet, editor
Author of An Aviary of Small Birds and Seasonal Disturbances
We are witnessing climate crisis and mass extinction. The Anthropocene is the proposed name for a new geological epoch, created by human actions. The term encapsulates the total impact of human activities on Earth’s systems. As such, it is a crucial new development for the sciences, humanities and arts.
This conference brings together an international array of thinkers from geography, literature and culture.
The term Anthropocene remains controversial. Discussions among geologists are ongoing. Is the scale of ‘human’ activities really what is at stake here, or the activities of a few individuals, nations, corporations and governments? A subsistence farmer in Africa quite clearly does not have the same impact on the Earth as the chief executive of a coal mining company. Is the very idea of the Anthropocene western-centred – even racist?
The Anthropocene has been critiqued for being Eurocentric, human-focussed, capitalist and white-dominated. Karen Yusoff has challenged the Anthropocene’s ‘white geology’ for ignoring the enslaved and exploited black and brown bodies that the term obscures.
Environmental damage is a major driver of diaspora and new forms of exile, from climate change migration and the flight from polluted cities to ‘solastalgia’ (a feeling of distress caused by environmental damage close to your home.)
Topics will include:
*Theories of the Anthropocene, and what the concept means for different disciplines
*The Anthropocene and race across visual art, literature, music, social sciences and related narratives
*African Diasporan, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and LBGTQ+ perspectives on the Anthropocene, across disciplines
*Ecological imperialism, globalisation and capitalism, the ‘Capitalocene’
*Multi-species communities of resilience and resistance, the ‘Chthulucene’
*Geology, geological narratives, and what they imply for human beings
*Boundaries and border-crossings, human and nonhuman; migration of people, animals and plants (forced or voluntary)
*Oceanic studies and wider Pacific cross-cultural currents
*Cultural narratives about extinction, climate change, oceanic impacts
Black History Month Advent Calendar
Here’s a link to a fab Black History Month Advent Calendar of interesting people of African Caribbean heritage from the past and the present – you’ll be amazed – share with your kids.
https://ourhistoryissharedhistory.com/#
The pic on our site doesn’t work – follow the link to have some fun!
Some BHM resources
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b082x0h6/black-and-british-a-forgotten-history
Toppling Statues
Toppling statues and renaming buildings | The Black Lives Matter Movement and the history of slavery
Thursday 15 October | 2.15pm to 3.00pm
In honour of Black History Month, Liverpool John Moores University will be hosting a live lecture focusing on Black Lives Matter Movement both in the US and UK and the impact this had in Liverpool.
The Black Lives Matter movement has, in recent months, led to a resurgence of discussion around Britain’s involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade and how this should be remembered. Events in the UK (such as the toppling of Colston’s statue in Bristol, and calls to rename streets in Liverpool) have generally mirrored those in the United States, where there has been a widespread removal of monuments to people with links to slavery.
Speaker: Andrea Livesey is a lecturer in slavery and US history at LJMU. She has published on slavery in the United States and has provided commentary for BBC radio, the Guardian, and other media outlets on the memory of slavery in the UK and the US.
Details: Thursday 15 October 2:15-3pm via ZOOM. Targeted at pupils in Years 10-13. If this is not relevant to your subject area , please feel free to direct to colleagues in your History department.
To register for this event please email Outreach@ljmu.ac.uk
Alternatively, if you are unable to join us live and would like to receive a copy of the recording, please email us at the address above.
