History of slavery & colonialism: Some useful resources

We've made so much progress on this conversation in just a week!! 

Last summer I was telling a friend: "I want to come back to the UK because most of our global problems started here, and I feel the is where we can start solving them." 

Well now is an interesting time.

As readers of this blog know, I've spent years in Africa as a reporter, and a year as a researcher on colonial history for a documentary film company, created by Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The 4 films we worked on are far from ready to be produced but it may be time to share some of the content; I'll dig in my archives...

In the meantime, here are great resources if you want to learn more about colonial history and the mass deportation of forced "human labour" from Africa to the Americas, by the International Museum of Slavery in Liverpool:

https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/history-of-slavery/transatlantic-slave-trade

Useful resources

Suggestions for further reading and research about the history of slavery and its legacies.

Learning and research

• Understanding Slavery - a free online teaching resource
• Centre for the Study of International Slavery - a slavery research centre founded by the University of Liverpool and National Museums Liverpool
• Black Atlantic web resource - launched during the Liverpool and the Black Atlantic exhibitions and events in 2010
• Enslaved Africans: our truth - follow four Africans on their harrowing journeys into slavery with our interactive feature
• Parliament and the British Slave Trade 1600 - 1807 - this complex relationship is explored, with online access to all of the key documents in the archives including the 1807 Act and slave trade petitions. The learning section includes lesson plans and tools for creating interactive resources
• The Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE)
• H-Slavery Discussion Network - studies in the world history of slavery, abolition and emancipation
• Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture - part of the New York Public Library
• New York Historical Society - features on slavery and its impact on the people, landscape, institutions and economy of New York City
• The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
• The Equiano Project - celebrating the life and times of the 18th century writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, with the Equiano Society and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
• Mémoire St Barth - dedicated to the history of St Bartholomew, focusing on the slave trade, slavery, abolition and their impact on this island of the Lesser Antilles.
• STeR: Colonialism, Slavery, Trade, Reparations - a Universit of Essex project

Events

• Africa Oyé - the UK's largest free celebration of African music and culture, held in Liverpool each June.
• Slavery Remembrance Day - a commemoration and celebration of the end of slavery, held in Liverpool on 23 August each year
• Black History Month - events and activities across the UK for Black History Month

Museums and places of interest

• London, Sugar and Slavery - a permanent gallery at the Museum in Docklands in London
• Wilberforce House Museum , Hull - the birthplace of slavery abolitionist William Wilberforce
• The Africa Centre - the heart of Africa in the heart of London
• National Maritime Museum Greenwich
• Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
• The Anacostia Community Museum  - the Smithsonian Institution's museum of African American history and culture 
• Barbados Museum and Historical Society
• The African American Museum in Philadelphia
• The Mariner's Museum - the largest maritime museum in North America
• A slave ship speaks - the wreck of the Henrietta Marie - a 17th century slave ship at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida
• Ninsee - the National Institute of Dutch slavery history and heritage
• Steve Biko Foundation
• The King Centre
• Muhammad Ali Center
• National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

Human rights organisations

• Anti-Slavery International - founded in 1839, Anti-Slavery International is the oldest international human rights organisation in the world and works to eradicate all forms of slavery internationally
• Not For Sale Campaign - combines technology, intellectual capital, abolitionist groups and a growing network of individuals, joined together, with the aim of ending slavery in their lifetime
• Stop the Traffik - a growing global coalition working together to fight against people trafficking.
• Amnesty International - is an organization that campaigns to protect human rights worldwide. Their work involves protecting victims of trafficking in the UK, as part of the campaign to stop violence against women.
• Federation of International Human Rights Museums (FIHRM)
• Equality and Human Rights Commission
• Plan UK
• Rights and Humanity
• Anthony Walker Foundation
• Youth for Human Rights
• Human Rights Watch
• ECPAT UK - End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children
• Helen Bamber Foundation
• UNICEF UK
• Kalayaan - Justice for migrant domestic workers

'Fall Please': Tricky’s first single from his 14th studio album, "Fall to Pieces"

“Fall Please” has just been released today, as the first single from Tricky’s 14th studio album:
 Fall to Pieces.

The album is due out September 4 via his label False Idols.

Tricky said in a statement that he likens 'Fall Please' to Washington D.C.’s Go-go: “It’s my version of pop music, the closest I’ve got to making pop.”

Tricky - 'Fall Please' - feat. Marta

'Fall Please' feat. Marta is taken from Fall To Pieces, the new album from Tricky out on 4 September on False Idols. You can pre-order it here: https://falseidols.lnk.to/FalltoPieces Video & Animations by Marta Kacprzak Tricky online: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrickyOfficial/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/KnowleWestboy Website: http://www.trickysite.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trickyofficial


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Earlier this year Tricky shared an EP named 20,20 - see here: http://melissa-on-the-road.blogspot.com/2020/02/tricky-2020.html 

He released his autobiography Hell Is Round The Corner last October, read my review in the TLS here:

Bristol Sounds

By Melissa Chemam

The rapper turned producer Adrian Thaws, more commonly known as Tricky, is considered one of the pioneers of “the Bristol sound”, a mix of hip-hop, soul vocals, punk ethos and electronic arrangements, pioneered in the city by Massive Attack. Tricky was an early collaborator of the band, and appeared on their debut album Blue Lines (1991); known for his fiery temperament, however, he soon decided to work solo. His first album Maxinquaye(1995) peaked at number three in the charts and launched a busy career.

In his autobiography Hell is Round the Corner – written with the music journalist Andrew Perry – Tricky tells stories of touring with PJ Harvey, of meeting with the likes of the reggae producer Chris Blackwell and David Bowie, and he writes candidly about his romantic and musical relationship with Björk. However, the focus of the book is his difficult childhood, and in general he shies away from discussing the trappings of fame. “I see artists who are chasing their dream”, he writes, “and obviously you have to work hard to get anywhere with music, but in all honesty, I never chased it … It just happened for me, so I almost feel a bit too lucky.”

At the age of four, after the suicide of his mixed-race mother, Maxine Quaye, he grew up with his aunt and grandmother and was separated from his Jamaican father, Roy, whom they unfairly blamed for Maxine’s death. Tricky was surrounded by uncles who spent time in prison for petty crimes and violence, and at seventeen he briefly went to prison himself. He realized it wasn’t for him. Music was his first passion, and it helped him escape what he called the “white ghetto” of home: Knowle West in south Bristol. He remembers the first notes of Billie Holiday he heard as a child, and writes of his love for the Specials, a multicultural, working-class, self-made band who represented to him for the first time a positive mixed-race Britain. “When I’d seen [them]”, he writes, “I was like, ‘Fuck, I could be a musician, because they are all like me’”. He is proud, he writes, that many black and working-class young people are now inspired by him in the same way.

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Fall to Pieces' track-list:

01 Thinking Of
02 Close Now
03 Running Off
04 I’m in the Doorway
05 Hate This Pain
06 Chills Me to the Bone
07 Fall Please
08 Take Me Shopping
09 Like a Stone
10 Throws Me Around

Petition: Teach children about the realities of Imperialism and Colonialism

I studied in France, for two masters, studied history for years, then worked in the UK/Africa for years... but I had to teach myself colonial history, while it had directly impacted my family for decades!

I worked for years as a reporter in North America; East, central and North Africa; travelled to West and Southern Africa, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Mexico, Belgium and another dozen of European countries, covering these issues. And worked as a researcher for a few documentary films currently in the making. First and foremost one biopic on anti-colonialist thinker and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, but also projects about Malcolm X, American Indigenous history and history of genocides.

Let's give the next generation a better chance to understand!! And not only in the UK... In the USA, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Italy at least, all nations that participated in colonising the Americas & Caribbean islands, Africa, Asia, Australia & Australasia, and the Middle East.

Teach British children about the realities of British Imperialism and Colonialism

Petition:

Teach British children about the realities of British Imperialism and Colonialism

The Department for Education states that:

"The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils: Know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world."

Despite this, there is still much omitted from Britain’s colonial history. By excluding the evils of British Imperialism, along with how members of the African Diaspora contributed to the British nation-state, British children are robbed of understanding how colonialist ideology was implemented. This stunts the growth of racial equality in the UK and hinders the racial esteem of Black British children.

Frederick Douglass said that “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Similarly, we recognise that better education for our children is the most effective tool for constructing an anti-racist society.

A Quarantini with Josh Connolly

The Quarantini podcast

Episode 8

This week, I wanted to address the issue of resilience - after very intense days...

So I interviewed resilience coach and Nacoa ambassador Josh Connolly - from Josh Connolly - Freedom From Within - on how to take care of your mental health in this difficult period.

A Quarantini with Josh Connolly

In the last of our first series, we're delighted this week to be talking to Josh Connolly about how to manage difficult emotions which may be surfacing during lockdown.

Josh is a resilience coach and NACOA ambassador, National Association for Children of Alcoholics  (Free helpline: 0800 358 3456).

We also have music from Lady Nade and our usual round up from Bristol, UK, and around the world.

Listen here: https://the-quarantini.captivate.fm/episode/a-quarantini-with-josh-connolly

Music: 

Safe Place, Lady Nade, Bristol, UK

Hosts: Melissa Chemam and Pommy Harmar

Producer: Pommy Harmar

Opening & closing music: Hot Flu, The Old Bones Collective

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And here is the long version of the interview on YouTube:

Interview with Josh Connolly, resilience coach, on how to deal with stress during lockdown

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A Quarantini with Josh Connolly

Banksy's plan for a new statue in Bristol...

What should we do with the empty plinth in the middle of Bristol? did Banksy ask today...

banksy

Verified

"Here’s an idea that caters for both those who miss the Colston statue and those who don’t. We drag him out the water, put him back on the plinth, tie cable round his neck and commission some life size bronze statues of protestors in the act of pulling him down. Everyone happy. A famous day commemorated."

With the toppling of Colston’s statue, history is being made in Britain | Melissa Chemam

My latest article for The Independent's Voices:

With the toppling of Colston’s statue, history is being made in Britain| by Melissa Chemam

photo by Melissa Chemam, 7 June 2020, Bristol 

As a historian of Bristol’s culture, I took part in this weekend’s Black Lives Matter march. When the slave trader’s statue finally fell, screams of joy exploded through the multicultural crowd.

• Melissa Chemam in Bristol @melissachemam

Bristol’s Black Lives Matter protests this Sunday concluded with the toppling of the public statue of a slave trader, Edward Colston, celebrated for decades by the city as a mere “philanthropist”. I was among the protesters gathered, and when the statue came down we felt our fight against the oppression of people of colour had finally hit a new, important level.

I came to Bristol in 2015 as a foreign journalist to write about the city’s culture and tradition of protests, based on the journey of its most famous artists. Once I started researching my book, I never stopped hearing about Colston. I chose to move back here again recently because I felt, as I explained to a friend earlier this year, that most of the problems of the 21st century started in England, and this is one place where we’re going to start to solve them.

The Bristol protests started, like so many others, as a response to the killing of George Floyd, with a few speeches on social justice and coming together to kneel, in silence, for eight minutes. Then the march started, peacefully, towards the centre of the city and the infamous statue of Colston. When the Black Lives Matter protesters finally pulled it down — at about 2.30pm, just an hour and a half after the march began — screams of joy exploded through the multicultural, multigenerational crowd.

Protester John McAllister declared: “It says ‘erected by the citizens of Bristol, as a memorial to one of the most virtuous and wise sons of this city’. The man was a slave trader. He was generous to Bristol, but it was off the back of slavery and it’s absolutely despicable. It’s an insult to the people of Bristol.”

A group then dragged the remains of the statue towards the city’s river, and threw it in the water in a location facing Pero’s Bridge, named after a Caribbean man known to have been a slave of the merchant John Pinney.

What happened in Bristol this Sunday shows that the debate on Britain’s colonial legacy has been postponed for far too long. If up until the 19th century it was considered politically correct to celebrate this sort of “philanthropy” based on slavery, change had been long overdue. Colston’s company alone is reported to have transported more than 100,000 slaves from west Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas between 1672 and 1689.

For me, as my own family has been deeply affected by colonialism elsewhere in the world, it is puzzling to hear some English people still defending the statue based on the understanding of our shared history. France wouldn’t erect statues of Petain, or Germany of Hitler, just for the sake of remembrance of our criminal pasts.

Change is upon us. In France, slavery has been recognised as a crime against humanity since 2001. Yet it took until a few days ago for the statue of Victor Schoelcher to be taken down in Martinique.

The fall of Colston’s statue in Bristol is a bellwether of attitudes — a sign that the UK will now have to deal with its past differently. British-Nigerian historian David Olusoga wrote last night that the statue might “be fished out at some point” and “put in the city museum, where it has long belonged”.

A few artists born in the city had been voicing this message for years, including the band Massive Attack. They were among the marchers, and tweeted: “The elevation of a slave trader clashed badly with our civic identity. A philanthropy derived from crimes against humanity is as hollow as the statue itself.”

This weekend, history has been made in the UK. And it started in Bristol.

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Melissa Chemam is freelance journalist, associate lecturer in journalism at UWE Bristol and author of ‘Massive Attack — Out of the Comfort Zone’ (2019). She has reported on migration issues in east and central Africa and western Europe for the BBC World Service and other international broadcasters

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Originally published at https://www.independent.co.uk on June 8, 2020.

Black Lives Matter protests - Bristol, UK - 7 June 2020

The protests started at 1pm on College Green, in front of Bristol's town hall:  

We were among them from 1pm.

The demonstrations was organised as a response to the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, US of A. on 25 May.

No more #KarmaComa: #BlackLivesMatter #protesters finally #healing these very old #wounds of #colonialism and #slavery #lestweforget #UK#Britain #Bristol 


The marchers then walked towards the statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston, celebrated for decades for his "philanthropy" (paying for schools, libraries, etc. For 'white' people only, of course). 

And finally protesters threw the statue into the city's river, after pulling it down earlier around 2:30pm.

The bronze memorial statue had stood in the centre of Bristol since 1895 but had sparked controversy for years. And in recent days, more than 10,000 people signed a petition calling on Bristol City Council to have it removed.  

Before it was pulled down, protestor John McAllister, 71, declared: 

 "It says 'erected by the citizens of Bristol, as a memorial to one of the most virtuous and wise sons of this city'.  The man was a slave trader. He was generous to Bristol but it was off the back of slavery and it's absolutely despicable. It's an insult to the people of Bristol." 


NB. Edward Colston was involved in slave trading through the Royal African Company, which then had a monopoly over slave trading, and was later elected as the Tory MP for Bristol. He still has a large representation in the city where he was born, through many schools, buildings, streets and charities named after him.



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About my book on Bristol's music, art, activism:


This book is dedicated to the history of the band Massive Attack and to their relationship with their home town of Bristol, a city built on the wealth generated by the slave trade.

As a port Bristol was also an arrival point for immigrants to the UK, most notably the Windrush generation from the Caribbean in the 1950s. Author Melissa Chemam's in-depth study of the influences that led to the formation of the Wild Bunch and then Massive Attack looks into Bristol's past to explore how the city helped shape one of the most successful and innovative musical movements of the last 30 years.

Based on interviews with Robert Del Naja (aka 3D), Tricky, street artists, musicians, historians and many others, the book examines the inner tensions between the founding members of Massive Attack - 3D, Daddy G and Mushroom - but mainly their influences, collaborations and politics, the way in which they opened the door for other Bristol musicians and artists including Banksy, and how they changed the city for good.

Massive Attack: Out Of The Comfort Zone

by Melissa Chemam

Rough Trade Books of the Year 2019 No. 15

'The Tyranny of Normal' - by Massive Attack

Massive Attack

4 June at 18:48

The Tyranny of Normal

There are scenarios for which neither a placard nor a hashtag is sufficient. From the moment 17-year- old Darnella Frazier’s smartphone lens recorded the nine-minute murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, we – in the US, the UK and beyond – entered such a scenario. In this sense, Darnella’s lens can be seen as a portal through which the world cannot reverse.

The distress and outrage expressed globally since the killing, and the police brutality that (as night follows day) that energy provokes has been harrowing to watch. The reflex to share this material is inescapable, and the technology to propagate and distort it is at our fingertips. We know how to cultivate outrage. Can we now learn to challenge inevitability?

In the glare of breaking news, the spectacular physical and digital reaction to racism and brutality is elevated and can be cathartic to all. But in the days to come, it’s in the tyranny of “normal” where the battle for justice will be faced.

The tyranny of normal for black people on either side of the Atlantic means the sickening, immutable numbness of police murder, assault, economic and social degradation and segregation, tokenised visibility and a jury that’s always rigged.

The tyranny of normal for white people in those two countries, means a profound ignorance of our colonial history that still informs and enforces the present; of never seeing or hearing a black colleague crying in a bathroom cubicle, of never experiencing a criminal justice system that reaches a verdict in the patrol car, and of never feeling that any type of opportunity is deeply conditional.

Can we avoid “Black Out Tuesday” being one isolated day beside a whitewashed 364?

The challenge for all who wish to see an end to racism now lies in the everyday and commonplace. That challenge might mean resisting the powerful algorithms and corporate brand platitudes that seek to appropriate human emotions, and instead to choose to act on what can be seen in plain sight. Our biological lenses can be as important as Darnella Frazier’s digital version.

Thinking, learning, educating, listening, and intervening to the point of personal discomfort are now radical acts to be deployed at home, socially, in the workplace and in the streets.

Showing up, daily, after the spectacular stops trending and the words on placards have changed is the imperative.

Black Lives Matter.

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PS: In the spirit of personal recommendations, here’s ours: “13th” by Ava DuVernay.