Subject Index: Race & Racism

The content on this site is put into subject categories. These pages list content filed under each subject. You can also use the Tag Index to see a full list of keywords used on the site.

The London Recruits: undercover in apartheid South Africa

Colourful poster listing dates, times and themes
The history of the Anti-Apartheid movement brings up images of boycotts and public campaigns in the UK. But another story went on behind the scenes, in secret, one that has been never told before. This is the story of the foreign recruits and their activities in South Africa, how they acted in defiance of the Apartheid government and its police on the instructions of the African National Congress (ANC). Ken Keable made two undercover trips to Johannesburg and Durban in 1968 and 1970 to […]

‘Walter Rodney: What they don’t Want you to Know’

Colourful poster listing dates, times and themes
BRHG are very pleased to welcome Arlen Harris (co-director) and Luke Daniels to Bristol to discuss this new documentary profiling the Guyanese revolutionary Walter Rodney. ‘Walter Rodney: What they don’t Want you to Know’ is an original 72-minute documentary featuring a murder, Cold War conspiracies, Black Power, the end of Empire, and how that connects to the policing, surveillance practices and social movements of today. This is the first film where Walter’s widow reveals the personal impact […]

Radical plaque-making

Colourful poster listing dates, times and themes
Raising John Isaac TTEACH Plaques’ Gloria Daniel shares the methods and means she has employed over the past four years to confront and challenge institutions to face and acknowledge their past involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave economy. She explains how a simple but personal request to permanently site a corrective historical plaque to her enslaved great-great grandfather, John Isaac Daniel, led to the creation of TTEACH (Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved African Corrective Historical) […]

Winston Trew statement on the quashing of the convictions of Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin

In 2022 Winston Trew of the Oval Four gave a talk at the Bristol Radical History Festival detailing his lifelong campaign for justice for the victims of racist and corrupt police officer Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell. Winston’s devastating story is detailed in his books Black for a Cause… and Rot at the Core: The Serious crimes of a Detective Sergeant . A young Black Power activist in 1973, Winston and three friends were accosted in the Oval tube station by plain clothes police, arrested, […]

The role of Museums in constructing our understanding of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

shackles
As I worked on gathering pertinent words that will appear in the index of my forthcoming book: The Journal of Captain Thomas Phillips of Brecon, the Slave Ship Hannibal, and all who Sailed on Her (1693-1695) the key word ‘museum’ appears on my list. Why had a word associated with exhibition interjected itself into a narrative of events that had occurred nearly 330 years ago? To answer this question, I refer to the plaque commissioned by Brecon Town Council in 2010 to honour the life of the slave […]

The role of Museums in constructing our understanding of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Black Lives Matter banner displayed in Brecon
As I worked on gathering pertinent words that will appear in the index of my forthcoming book: The Journal of Captain Thomas Phillips of Brecon, the Slave Ship Hannibal, and all who Sailed on Her (1693-1695) the key word ‘museum’ appears on my list. Why had a word associated with exhibition interjected itself into a narrative of events that had occurred nearly 330 years ago? To answer this question, I refer to the plaque commissioned by Brecon Town Council in 2010 to honour the life of the slave […]

Colonialism and Memory in Bristol

Mnemoscapes of the South West SWWDTP Memory Studies Research Cluster

transparent fiddle Not A BRHG Event
Rosemary Caldicott and Mark Steeds will be speaking at the Colonialism and Memory in Bristol. Join us for a public workshop on colonialism and memory in Bristol. Moving between the museum, the city, and space for discussion and reflection, we’ll be asking what decolonisation means, what it might look like in practice, as well as the challenges facing these efforts. Join us at the M Shed in Bristol on 1st July, The workshop is free and refreshments and lunch will be provided, but space is limited […]

Bristol Against Apartheid

Bristol Radical History Festival 2023 poster, featuring a Walter Crane print
The exhibition provides examples of the activism of Bristol Anti-Apartheid Movement (BAAM) in its campaign to raise awareness of the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. Formed in 1964, BAAM was one of the largest local groups affiliated to the national Anti-Apartheid Movement. Material donated to the Bristol Archives and photographs from the Bristol Post Archive show the diverse range of activities over the group's 30 year history - pickets, boycotts, meetings, fundraising events such as […]

Lost and Found: Bristol’s underground visual artists

Bristol Radical History Festival 2023 poster, featuring a Walter Crane print
This panel considers the work of contemporary artists who have had an influence and impact on Bristol but sought little exposure for themselves. Two artists who have recently passed away, Steve Philbey and Tony Forbes, certainly fit the bill, as do the activities of the Bristol Refugee Artists Collective. Steve Philbey (1943 - 2022) was a painter, muralist, graphic artist, photographer and founder/chronicler of The Saint-Just Mob. And also variously a factory worker, Father Christmas, painter […]

The Bristol Bus Boycott : Race, Unions and Civil Rights

Bristol Radical History Festival 2023 poster, featuring a Walter Crane print
The 1963 bus boycott against the Bristol Omnibus Company (BOC) was the first black-led campaign against racial discrimination in post-WW2 Britain. In the early 1960s,the black citizens of Bristol were experiencing racial discrimination in housing, employment, education, and welfare organisations. The one area of discrimination that particularly rankled was the 'colour bar' on the buses. A small group of local black activists decided to campaign for equal rights to employment on the city's buses. […]

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