 Okay, well, thank you to Emma for the introduction and thank you all for coming out this evening. I know on Friday evenings people have all sorts of exciting things they could be doing rather than coming here and listening to me or buying the book or whatever other reason people have come, but it's very good to have all of you here. I don't know whether I want to say it's good to be back at SOAS or not. I spent a lot of my life about 12 years actually at SOAS. Emma got some of the bug for a little bit wrong because I actually did two PhDs here, although one I didn't complete for various reasons I won't go into now to save the embarrassment of SOAS more than my own embarrassment. But anyway, I came back and did another one so I spent a lot of my life here. I'll actually hear about more over there. Those of you who want to know what I made of it or you can read the blog, where can people find the blog? Anyway, there's a blog I wrote somewhere, a SOAS type blog, I'm sure you can find it if you look for it. Okay, so I'm going to say something about my new book. It's a rather long book. I see one or two people staggering around with it. And I apologize for the length of it. The length of it has something to do with the length of the history. The book covers about 10,000 years. But I'm only going to cover about 2,000 tonight so don't get looked too alarmed. But I can't really cover that those 2,000 years very adequately so I thought the best thing to do was to show you some of the illustrations from the book. The book contains more than 50 photos and illustrations so I actually haven't got time to show you all of those either. But I'm going to show you some of them in order to say something about the history of Africa and Caribbean people in Britain. Some of them are my kind of favorite photos, some of them just illustrate some of this history. So let's see how we get on. I can get the images to work that way. Well this problem last night was in Edinburgh. And I'm going to do that every time. I don't even want to stay there and do the technical thing. Last night was in Edinburgh and we had four academics on the stage to try and load a USB drive. And nobody could work out how to do it, or to actually find the USB drive on the desktop and so on. Anyway so we're a little bit ahead so as it's always a little bit ahead of Edinburgh at least. So this first slide is taken from Roman Britain so I guess about 1700 years ago something like that. And I'm going to start with Roman Britain. This is a reconstruction obviously this is not a natural person. Some of you have realized that I can see nodding in the front there. There's a reconstruction of a woman who's known as Ivory Bangal lady because she was buried with an array of jewelry including an Ivory Bangal. She was buried in York City of York in the third century. She's quite a good illustration of some members of the Roman occupation we could say of Britain. And that she was clearly as her DNA shows an African woman. She wasn't alone there are many others in the book I mentioned some of the other recent finds and archaeological discoveries. I also know that there were people like Septimia Severus. It's often called the African Emperor came from Libya, and also lived and died in York. There's another guy called Quintus Lolicus Urbicus who was the governor of Britain who was from Algeria, and they brought with them soldiers and also women and children and so on who were Africans. So this actually is a very big deal. It's just how things were but there are some people who get very upset. Some people have got so upset they've produced a video on YouTube saying that I'm, what did they say I was doing brainwashing school children. Because I talk about Africans in Roman Britain. In fact, they couldn't read this big book but they took another book I read for children and they attacked that but anyway this is just Britain's history. In fact there were Africans here before Roman times. In the book I also talk about Chetan man Chetan man didn't come from Africa directly is just a representative of a black person who wasn't African as such, but lived in Britain for about 10,000 years ago. At that time everybody in Britain looked a bit like Chetan man you can see the picture of him in the book. I'm not going to talk about him anymore. So that's anyway that's going back in any 2000 years oh yes I can do it come on. So I'm going to move forward. Now, I'm going to move forward to the early 16th century just because of images. And then there were not Africans here in the centuries between Roman times and the 15th century just I haven't got images that I can use to demonstrate it but in every century, you find examples of Africans being here. You can see these are kind of archaeological generally archaeological finds of Africans and one of the problems with archaeology itself is that it's tended to be a little bit Eurocentric. And so science isn't often applied to the discoveries that are that are made. So people assume that they find a skeleton this is a person who has blonde hair and blue eyes. They've actually analyzed skeletons very often they don't, people didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes and the more people looking at these things now, the more they're finding that people were Africans or of African heritage some of you probably saw something in the news just last week of a girl who was a skeleton of a girl who died in Kent in the 7th century. And they reckon that they did the DNA test is it 33% of her DNA was Europe. They reckon or maybe not anybody from West Africa, probably Europe. So she didn't come from Africa but probably her father or grandfather came in the 7th century, why was somebody from what is today in Nigeria coming to Britain then, or maybe they didn't come maybe. So these, this is the kind of evidence that's now being found and as I say the more it's dug up if I can use that phrase and analyze the more information we will find about these early centuries and have a completely different view maybe of British history in the medieval and early medieval periods. So when we come to the tutors and stewards. This is an illustration from Tudor England, the beginning of the 16th century. And we know the gentleman as you can see in this illustration is named or he was known as john blank or john white he was in the employee of the royal cult. And when I think about him he was quite well paid. I think he's the first African on record to demand a wage increase and be successful. But he's just an illustration of hundreds of Africans who were here in that period and not only employed by the English court by the Scottish court as well. But also Africans and doing a whole variety of occupations from needle makers to divers to pilots to anywhere a whole range of things men and women during that period. I'm going to go into more detail which I'm not going to go into now but just to illustrate the fact of course in this period. England's relationship with Africa was undergoing a change and I'm sure you're aware of. It began to engage in a more exploitative relationship with Africa, but even in this period. African rulers were sending their, usually their sons to be educated places like so I so I wasn't around at that time but anyway they were sent to places like this. Okay let's have the next one. So I'm going to move on a couple of centuries old he's still there. As I said, okay, no problem. Actually, I've got an appointment to just remember. Okay, so this is going forward a couple of centuries just because of time. And this particular slide is an illustration of the second Duke of Perth. And we're not particularly interested in him other than he was a Scottish aristocrat of that period. But person who's more interesting is the young boy who's portrayed in this picture you can just see there and what's interesting about him. I don't know, although maybe he is known, but I think I'm known of name is that he's wearing a collar, rather like some of your home of cats and dogs. But in the early 18th century late 17th century it was the fashion for people of property to have African pets, sometimes Indian pets but usually African pets. There's young girls and so on. And what this illustrates is what I mentioned a few moments ago the changing relationship between England and Africa during that period. And the fact that Africans were being brought to Britain as property, or some people like to say as enslaved people but as property that could be bought and sold and exchanged and so on. And I'm not going to show an advert for the buying and selling of African children here but such adverts are freely available on the internet you can see them for yourself they were very common in that period. What was more common, what was equally common was the acts of liberation of those Africans who were enslaved during that period, who took action to liberate themselves to organize themselves and to change their situation I'll say more about that in a moment or two. Okay, so the, how to explain this new relationship in a slide or two, and William answer is perhaps quite a good illustration of how things worked. He was the son of a gentleman ruler in what is today Ghana in West Africa, who, as I mentioned before wanted his son to be sent to so as somewhere like that to be educated. And so he sent him with a trustworthy person who took William to England but unfortunately the person turned out to be not very trustworthy. He kidnapped William, took him to Barbados, where Bev wants to go, and enslaved him. That was his fate. Well, understandably Williams father was not very happy about this I forgot to mention that as well as being a gentleman, Williams father was a human trafficker of other Africans. And though he thought that trafficking of other Africans was perfectly reasonable. He thought that the fact that his own son was being trafficked was rather unreasonable. He contacted the British by that time company that was in charge of human trafficking during that period which was known as the Royal Africa Company. It's called the Royal Africa Company because it was dominated by the monarchy. Because as I know, you're aware, the monarchy were the chief human traffickers in Britain's history. Everybody from Elizabeth Tudor to William Hanover were engaged in human trafficking one form or another. And they established their role monopolies like the Royal Africa Company, the Royal Adventures in Africa and others. I'll tell you more about all of that in the book. So Williams father contacted the Royal Africa Company and said look, there will be no more human trafficking from this part of Africa until my son is returned. The Royal Africa Company, understandably rather upset, immediately went to Barbados. They found William, they bought back his freedom. They bought him to London. They gave him this rather nice suit of clothes. He was accommodated by the government minister responsible for human trafficking, who's known as the president of the Board of Trade. I think that title position still exists in the government. He was taken to the opera, to the theatre, had a holiday, his biography was published, his portrait was painted in some. After a couple of months, holiday was returned to West Africa to his father. He was very glad to see him and said, great, human trafficking can recommence as in the past. So what this story illustrates is that human trafficking was a business conducted by the wealthy and powerful in Africa and their counterparts in Britain, of which the British monarchy were the chief agents. Okay, we can go to the next slide. Let's go a bit quicker. So this particular slide just to illustrate that not everybody in the 18th century was a human trafficker or an enslaved person. This is also to show that I haven't got anything in particular against the monarchy. It's all very well in its place. To show that I brought this illustration from the, actually the Kings now the Kings personal collection. I said to Charles I'm going to so as next week he said you must show them this particular picture. I'm going to hold it tonight to show you. This is just illustration of 18th century trumpeter African trumpeter in from one of the household regiments. Very unusual today to see such a military personage. I think the last soldier I can remember who was enlisted in one of the household regiments resigned because he said it was too much racism. In the 18th century this is this was quite typical and in fact it became a tradition of the military in this country to have African trumpeters African musicians in general throughout the 18th century, early 19th century. And of course also it had people who fought in the army in the Navy. Even those who were formerly enslaved who were incorporated into the British Army as well. So this is just an illustration of the diversity of occupations I can't show all from the 18th century. Let's move on, please. What's next. Oh, okay. Well this gentleman is probably the most famous of those 18th century Africans his name was a lot of it. He was the most well known for his autobiography. He was a activist, I guess we call him. Some might call him a pan African Estee formed one of the first pan African organizations in London the Sons of Africa, that campaigned against human trafficking and enslavement. He lectured up and down the country. As part of the abolitionist movement in this country in the particularly in the 1780s and early 1790s and I'm not sure whether you know that in Britain's history the anti slavery movement, the anti slave trade or anti human trafficking movement was probably the largest political movement in Britain's history certainly one of the earliest movements that included Africans, workers, women, literally millions of people who campaigned, who signed petitions who boycotted sugar and tea and coffee and so on. Excuse me. It's a massive movement but it's one that's hardly ever discussed and spoken about. But Equiano and others played a leading role in it. He was also a member of the London corresponding society one of the radical organizations of that time so radical it was banned by the government. It was an important organization that had very advanced political principles. They argued that if you were for the rights of Africans, then you must also be for the rights of working people in Britain. If you were for the rights of working people in Britain who had of course no rights at that particular time as such, then you must also be for the rights of Africans. In other words, you should be concerned with the rights of all. So this is very important politics. Some people still haven't grasped that in the 21st century, unfortunately. Okay, let's move on. Okay, so I'm going to move on to the 19th century. Again, I could have shown lots of images, but I thought I'd show William Cuffey as I was in the mood of talking about those who fought for the rights of all. William Cuffey was one of those he was born in Chatham in the late 18th century 1788 and became the tailor by professional trade, but he's important because he became one of the leaders of a very important political movement in Britain's history. And the Chartists were the first national working class organization, I think, anywhere, really. They emerged in the 1830s here and they fought for six demands of their charter, which were all concerned with political rights, the right to vote, the right to be elected to parliament and other rights of this kind. So William Cuffey was amongst those that were others who were also engaged in similar kind of political activity but William Cuffey is one of the most well known. He was transported to Tasmania for his political activities as many political activists as well as others who fell foul of the law were at that time. Yeah, let's go on, move on. Okay, so I mean 19th century is a very interesting century that was a historian a few years ago who said that the black population died out in the 19th century, I won't name him. But in fact, there's so much one can talk about in the 19th century but I'm just going to skip over it. To some extent, there are lots of very significant and interesting women, I'm just going to mention Fanny Eaton here. Fanny Eaton was a cleaner, you could say, essentially, she was a cleaner. She was usually described as a child woman, but cleaner. She did needlework. She was a mother with 10 kids, a widow. She had a very difficult life. But she is known to us not because she was a cleaner, because generally cleaners are not recorded in history. But she's known to us because she was an artist model. And she was a model for many of the pre-Raphaelites, I know that you're familiar with this kind of thing. And she, her portrait was painted and incorporated in paintings, usually to give them a kind of exoticism, that's the right word. She was originally from Jamaica. She moved here and lived here through and died here in the 19th century. But she's illustrative of many women who we don't know much about, who were generally poor, found life quite difficult and are generally unrecorded as are many men of that period. Of course there are celebrated people, but there are also many who are uncelebrated and largely unknown. Yeah, let's go on because of time. Okay, well this gentleman is interesting. His name was Jill Celestine Edwards. Originally from the Caribbean, he was a, his journey recognises the first black editor of a national publication. He edited a publication called Fraternity, which he actually edited two publications, one called Fraternity, one called Lux. He was an anti-racist, an anti-imperialist, I would say, he protested against, yes, British imperialism in the 19th century. He was somebody who lectured up and down the country to actually sizeable audiences. He was a strong believer in temperance, which was a fashionable campaign or cause in the 19th century, meaning people should abstain from alcohol rather like I do. It's not quite as popular as it was at that time, but he was prominent in that campaign. He was also a Christian, a lay preacher, a very interesting man who, let's just go on to the next slide, please. In fact, he's so interesting. I used him for the cover of this book, which came out a couple of weeks ago. One of the things which he did was he anonymously wrote a book in which he talks about, one of the things he talks about is the notion of kind of Britain being the sort of heart of racism, although racism emerging from Britain, one of the things, and he does that by presenting a dialogue conversation between Christ and the devil. And she might think he's not the kind of thing that Christians probably normally do, but he certainly did it. And you can read some extracts of that book in this book, which is an anthology of writings on Britain by African Caribbean African American writers from the 18th century to the early 20th century. Yep, let's move on. I've done the plug now. Okay, so I'm going to move on to the 20th century. And one of the features of the 20th century is that many more people came to Britain and settled in Britain very often, but not always came as students from Africa or from the Caribbean. And this particular young man was a student at Edinburgh University where I was last night. But he didn't remain a student because he was more interested in political causes of various kinds. He was a critic of colonial rule. And he wrote a very interesting book in 1908, called a defense of the Ethiopian movement. Ethiopian movement was, we can, we can say it was a kind of early form of pan-Africanism. So his book is one of the earliest pan-African books. His name was Bandeli Omoni. He was a Nigerian. Interesting also because he came from a relatively poor family, but he managed to find his way here, where he was anyway, I won't go on and on about it. He's important to me because he, I wrote about one of the first things I ever wrote as a historian was about this young man, so I'm quite fond of him. And he later went to Brazil where he got involved in all kinds of politics, was imprisoned and died of Berry Berry at the age of 27, just not many years after this picture was taken. But he's an example of this kind of student activists that were very much a feature of British history. And British history in the 20th century, and maybe the 21st century. Okay, then I haven't got, I have actually got an image for the First World War, but I decided not to show it because when people talk about the First World War in particular, they like to talk about people who fought in the war, or even died in the war without really talking about the war, what the war was about. So I thought we'd let Isaac Hall just tell us what the war was about. Because if you listen to Michael Gove or Boris Johnson, you'd never understand what the war was about. I think it was to save Western civilization or poor little Belgium or something. But Isaac Hall, it's attributed to Isaac Hall, Isaac Hall was what was known as a conscientious objector. Have you heard of him? Yeah, you have. Good. People who, because of their conscience, refused to fight. And they could be and he was in prison. It was in Pentonville. He was tortured originally from Jamaica. But he remained resolute as many thousands did. And we're not actually sure if this are his words, because this is written anonymously or it's presented anonymously. So it could be from another African conscientious objector, but it's usually attributed, or I usually attribute it anyway to Isaac Hall. So it's very anyway, it's a very good explanation of what's going on. It's probably one of the best summaries of the First World War actually I've ever seen. So there you are. Okay, so I mentioned students and student activism. So this is another example from the 1920s. This is the Nigerian Progress Union, formed in 1924. Some of them were actually students at University College, but this organization was actually formed in Labra Grove. And although it's the Nigerian Progress Union, the woman who co-founded it is sitting in the middle there. It wasn't Nigerian at all, but in the generally accepted sense of the term. And name was Amy Ashwood Garvey, and she was from Jamaica and the first wife of Marcus Garvey. By that time, they were estranged. And she was living in Stratum, and some people do. And she got together with the gentleman on the sitting on the right whose name was Ladipur Shalanke, and they formed the Nigerian Progress Union. It's important. It didn't last very long. I won't say much more about it, but it's an illustration of the kind of organizations that were around. Thanks for staying. Okay, and this is another slide of Amy Ashwood Garvey from the 1930s in Trafalgar Square. And this is a demonstration against the fascist invasion of Ethiopia, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. And there were many celebrated speakers at this particular rally. And Amy Ashwood Garvey was a very interesting woman, an activist, mainly British based from the 1920s, right through to the 1950s. She had a restaurant just up the road here in New Oxford Street. She had a nightclub, not too far away, walking distance in Carnaby Street. She was, yeah, she was, as you can see, an activist, a restaurateur, an impresario. She was a real Renaissance person. If you can, you can use Renaissance now. People attack the Renaissance, don't they? Some people don't know any better. Okay, let's move on. Okay, so this is another picture dealing with the same issue. And the question of Ethiopia, Abyssinia really united people in Africa and the African diaspora, as well as many other people in the 1930s. Because it was a clear sign of what the appeasement policies of Britain and France were leading to, were encouraging the rise of fascism and the likelihood of a new world war. This is one of my favorite photos from Cardiff. And you can see the banners there against fascism, remember Abyssinia, for collective security against the new world war and all these kinds of things. Cardiff is a kind of interesting place because it was a... No, I won't tell you that story. I haven't got time. Let's go on to the next. You can read it in a book. Because it's a story about communism. When I wrote the book that my editor, Penguin, said, why are there so many communists in this book? And I had to say, well, that was just because they were involved in. I better tell you the story now. There's a man called, I forgot his name, Harold Moody. Dr. Harold Moody was a GP of Jamaican heritage, GP in Peckham in the 1930s and so on. And he was the president of an organization called the League of Colored Peoples, which was a kind of anti-racist organization amongst other things. And he went to Cardiff in the 1930s and he said, and he went amongst the kind of black population of Cardiff. And he said that, essentially, they were all communists. And he explained that they were all communists or words to that effect. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. Because he said only the communists had organized amongst the population of Cardiff. And many of the key activists in Cardiff, key black activists, just happened to be communists. That's the story. So that photo is probably illustrates probably many of the men you saw in that photo holding the banners were communists. Again, that's just not a big deal. That's just the way it was. Okay, oh, we've gone on to the next one. Okay, so we've gone on to the Second World War. And again, when people talk about the Second World War, they like to show men who came from Africa or the Caribbean or were based here of African and Caribbean heritage who contributed. But they don't, they often talk about women. And this image illustrates two things. One, that Amelia King was a woman, which is important and significant. She came from Stepney, Stepney Poplar in East London. And she attempted to take part in the war effort, but she was prevented from doing so by the racism that existed in Britain at that time. It was called the Bars, it was called in the post, it says color ban, but it was usually known as color bar. And this particular poster mentions another famous case during the war of Leary Constantine, some of you have heard of him, the famous cricketer later, Pierre, the first black, Pierre, who was also discriminated against just up the road actually in the square, the Imperial Hotel in Russell Square, he was barred from it. So that was quite common in Britain in that period, even during the war, which is ostensibly fought against fascism and all these kinds of things. But the problem of the color bar was ever present and it existed not just in the land army, which Amelia King tried to join, but also in the services as well. And the auxiliary services that is sometimes forgotten about the those who did come and fight or were British based and fought had to also overcome that problem of racism in order to do so and it sometimes swept under the carpet a little bit. In the book I go into in very great detail. Because when you actually look at the facts, it sort of leaps out and grabs you around the throat. It's so prevalent everywhere. Yep, next one please. The next one is another person who contributed to the war effort. This time from Nigeria. She was known as, I suppose as a nurse at them a lot. And she's, she was a nurse here in London she illustrates something that is sometimes forgotten about which is that African women came here and stayed here very often and contributed to the health service as nurses and doctors and men came as well but women came. It's important to mention that, of course, women from Africa are still being brought, we can say, to Britain now into the NHS. So the health services of African countries are being brain drained, but it's important to remember because very often the presentation of nurses, if black nurses are mentioned, people tend to talk about those from the Caribbean and that's fair enough in its way. But it excludes all those from the African continent. There was actually a BBC documentary a couple of years ago, a few years ago, I can't remember what it was called, was it called black angels or something. And it interviewed a lot of women and they all came from the Caribbean, except one, I think, coming from somewhere, Nigeria or Ghana or somewhere. But this is a kind of distortion of the facts and the history. And so Nurse Edemola was so important that a film was made about her during the war, kind of propaganda film by the British government, which unfortunately has now been lost or destroyed or hidden. So we don't have the film unless anybody has a copy or can find a copy, but we have some of the stills from that film made in 1944. Okay, yeah, let's go to the next one. She was, amongst other things, also a member of the West African Students Union. And here I thought West African Students Union were based just down the road there in Camden, almost in walking distance. An organization formed in 1925 that had branches all over Britain and all over West Africa as well. One of the things they did was to open their own hostels and centres because of the prevalence of racism, it was difficult for people to get accommodation to find somewhere to eat, to find somewhere to get their hair done or whatever. So they opened these hostels. This one is, you can still, this is still standing, this is in South Village in Camden. But this is quite a good picture from the forties. Especially they had about three different hostels all over London, they raised the money in West Africa, they went to West Africa, raised the money, came back. And of course these hostels were not just social centres, they were political centres. And the West African Students Union was one of the first organisations to demand independence from colonial rule in West Africa during the Second World War. As I can see, okay. So this is 1945, a famous Manchester Pan-African Congress. Here you can see Amy Ashwood Garvey on the panel, on the platform. In the middle is a guy called Peter Milliard who was a GP in Manchester who was the president of the Pan-African Federation that organised this famous Congress. A Congress that's probably more famous in Africa than it is in Britain. We haven't got time really to say too much about it. Other than maybe just look at the placards, you get an idea of the politics. Arabs and Jews united against British imperialism, down with anti-Semitism. The one I particularly like, labour in the white skin cannot emancipate itself while labour in the black skin is enslaved, which is a quote as you know from Karl Marx, Das Kapital. So this was the politics of the Pan-Africanists of 1945. Again, we could say a lot about it, but we won't. It was originally going to be held in Paris, but the weather was so much better in Manchester they moved into Manchester. Okay, let's have the next one. Okay. So 1948, as Amos said, was a very important year. I'm going to talk about the Turpin brothers. Very important, and I always get them mixed up. So you just have to accept that these are the three Turpin brothers. The most famous of the Turpin brothers was Randolph Turpin. You heard of him? No. You heard of Sugar Ray Robinson? Yes. Okay, well Randolph Turpin beat Sugar Ray Robinson. That's how good he was. But the one who's very, really important is Lionel, Lionel Jr. Their father actually was a soldier in the First World War, originally from what was then British Clown, I think. But Lionel Jr., who was known as Dick Turpin, is very, very important because he was the first British boxer. You can say black British boxer to fight for a British title. Why was that? Not the first. Yes, that's true, actually. First British. Yeah. In this period, because as in other parts of the other aspects of society, there was a colour bar in boxing. You were not a white boxer. You could not compete for a British title until 1948 when Dick Turpin won the British middleweight title and was allowed to compete for it and won a title. So it's a very historic victory. And it's also a very important year. Okay, let's go on, see what else we've got. Okay. Yes. So this is from the 1950s. And this is a paper of the Caribbean Labour Congress, the London branch or the British branch, the Caribbean Labour Congress. This particular one focusing on Birmingham and Henry Gunter, who was the one of the activists in Birmingham at that time. And you can see the headline N Colour Bar in Britain. I would have explained, but I'll explain now. I mentioned about the colour bar before. But the point about it was that racism in Britain was legal in this period. That is to say it was not illegal. It did not become illegal until 1965. So you could be discriminated against and people were discriminated against legally. So this is a very big recourse under the law, whether it was in the armed forces, in boxing, in a hotel, in a pub, in a university, anyway. So this is, of course, there were many demands and complaints that there should be a law but it was always defeated. And there were demands in Parliament as well, and they were all defeated. newspapers that existed at this time. In fact, from the 1940s, the Caribbean Labour Congress was established here. 1946, 1947, it was led by a man called Billy Stracker, who was also just happened to be a communist as well, actually. And for that matter, so was Henry Gunther, but that's another. Okay, so this I'm moving on again to 1962. And Claudia Jones, I'm sorry, I'm for mentioning Claudia is another communist. You see why my editor got so upset. So Claudia Jones, you're all familiar with her, I'm sure she's generally noted for organizing a Caribbean carnival celebration following the 1959 Notting Hill race, race attacks that are known as riots. She was many things are generally an organizer of people against racism, against imperialism. So she also was the founder of the West Indian Gazette, which some people talk a lot about as the first something first newspaper or something like that. The West Indian Gazette actually grew out of Caribbean news, the paper that I showed you before. This demonstration is against the 1962 immigration act. The first, I think the first post war, the first racist legislation in the post war period. There was other racist legislation before. But this was the first big one in the post war period that openly discriminated against people from people of color, we can say generally speaking. Okay, again, I'm moving on because I can't say and show everything. Okay, so this is from the 70s. And again, there's lots of things one could talk about in the 70s. But this is, in a way, indicative of maybe what was going on at the time, the oval for four young men, you can see them pictured there who were coming out of oval tube station in 1972, when they were attacked by a group of men. And a fight ensued. And it became clear during the course of that fight that the men happened to be members of the police service, I believe it's now referred to. So the four young men were then arrested, charged with various bogus offenses, connected with what was at that time, the crime of choice for the police, which was something called mugging, which was a term used for street robberies. And the term mugging was generally applied to young black men, mugging and muggers. So anyway, these four guys were arrested, tortured, made to sign various things, and eventually served time. And Winston was in prison, I think, for two years. And the important thing about this story is that Winston, they were all completely innocent and hadn't done anything wrong, other than to come out of the oval tube station at the wrong time. Winston campaigned for 50 years. And it was only, I get my years mixed up in the last year or the year before, that he and the other three were completely exonerated of all sentences. I don't think he's yet had any compensation. I might be wrong about that, but I don't think so. And the convictions were quashed because it was, it came to light. And I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think that's the worst, I think it's tough to just have been washed because it came to light, in various sort of what I won't go into now, but in a strange way that the police officer leading that attack was corrupt, with the expression used and actually had been in prison himself. But the fact that he'd been in prison wasn't enough for the police or and things that he'd been involved in. It came out in another way because of another court case and so on. So although people might like to think that this is all about one corrupt police officer, obviously it isn't. It's about the fact that the entire judicial system and police system is corrupt if one wants to use that word. And I heard the other day on the news, I think on the BBC that someone had done an investigation and found out the Metropolitan Police was a little bit racist. I don't know if anybody saw that. A very important report. Okay, so moving on, again in the 70s, this is also maybe a feature of the 70s. The connection that people hear, young people hear, young black people in Britain felt with Africa. This is an Africa Liberation Day, actual demonstration in Handsworth. And in those years, Emma will remember, well, I know that, I know you're not quite that old, but I know you don't remember the 70s, only the 80s, so I forgot that, yeah. But in the 70s, we used to celebrate Africa Liberation Day on May the 25th. It's not even called Africa Liberation Day anymore. And this is perhaps one of the best illustrations of those kinds of celebratory events that used to occur in London and other cities up and down the country. And with people connecting the struggles that were going on in Africa in various places, in Angola, Mozambique, in Guinea, in Eritrea and elsewhere, with the struggles that were people engaged in in this country. Okay, let's go on to the next one. Okay, good, yeah. So this is my friend, Ajay, on the right-hand side. And Ajay is also so as alumnus, she couldn't be here this evening, but we've known each other for whatever it is now, long time, 45 years or something. Long before Hama was even around. And Ajay couldn't be here tonight, but this picture is an important illustrative of another feature of British life and society. Because her son, Ola Shani, who you see here was tragically killed by the police 12 years ago while he was in hospital. He'd gone to hospital because as people did, he felt unwell and was, I always get the phrase wrong, he was like an outpatient. He had admitted himself to hospital. So you could say he was free to leave. Anyway, the hospital staff felt that he shouldn't leave. They called, I think 11 police officers and they killed Shani. So this tragedy, unfortunately, is one of numerous. I go into many of them, not all of them, but many in the book. It's linked to other tragedies. The key thing about it perhaps is that the impunity of the state that people can be killed by the state and its agents and nobody is held to account. I think in Britain's history, certainly recent history, no police person has ever. There is one exception, but even that one is not quite, no one has ever been brought to account for somebody who died in either in police custody or the hands of the police. So Adjie and her family have campaigned for 12 years. They have campaigned to such an extent they've brought in or had brought in a new law, which is called Shani's Law, which provides guidelines and oversight for the way that the police and others should act in hospitals and other such places of safety, so-called. And they still campaign. And in fact, there's a demonstration coming up. So this, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Can you just say it again so people can hear? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, well, it might be a new Prime Minister by then. Not that that would make any difference, but I just mentioned that. OK, let's go on with the next slide, please. OK, so that brings us right up to 2020. The book finishes. It goes from 10,000 BC to, not BC, anyway, before out here. To 2020. And of course, Black Lives Matter was partly about the kind of events I've just described in regard to Olashene, as well as in other countries. But it also raised issues about how history is presented to the people or history is presented or misrepresented and falsified. And so I thought it was kind of fitting to end the book by referring to that campaign, which is kind of unprecedented in Britain's history in the sense that it was literally from Land's End to John O'Groats or people from all different backgrounds involved and quite significant. And so it's important to. Two years hence to reflect on that, as I say, particularly important for those of us who are concerned with history and the presentation of history and the impact that has on young people, the falsification of history as on young people to present a. Accurate, correct, truthful version of events. And so that's what I've tried to do in this book. It's called a history. It's not the history. It doesn't claim that it's definitive in any way. It's my presentation and my attempt to summarize the research that's been done over the last 40 years or so. There's quite a lot of work that's been done. And you will see at the end of the book there are I don't know how many pages of references that people want to check up on these things and go into things in more detail than all the information is there. OK, thank you. OK, thank you very much, Hakim. So the floor is now open for questions and contributions. I will ask everybody to keep them concise so that we can have as many people who want to make a contribution or ask the question as can. We have two roving mics. Wait until the mic comes to you. I will indicate to our wonderful student helpers, student ambassadors who to go to. So if you can raise your hand if you've got any questions at all, anybody or you just want to rush off by the book and read it. Thank you very much, Hakim. It's a question about sources. What places, what archives? What did you go? Who did you talk to? To find stories you've been telling us about? Actually, I'm going to go over here. Yeah, I'm going to go over here. Because I want to sit next to me. I don't want to sit next to you. No, because I've got partly because I've got a bad back and those so-as chairs are a bit uncomfortable. So, well, as I said, the sources are what we would call secondary sources in the sense that a lot of people have done research. You know, some people write history book. I'm not mentioning pointing the finger at anybody in particular. Now, some people write books of history and they have very few references in them, which leads people to suspect that they discovered all these things for themselves. In fact, historians very rarely discover very much for themselves. There are always other people who research and write and so on. And so one draws on that and tries to summarize and crystallize it and present it in a way. So some of it, a lot of it is that some of it is it has to be remembered. I've been doing this work for, I don't know, more than 30 years, maybe even 40 years. So in that time, I've done a lot of research myself in different archives in this country and overseas. And so I draw on that as well. You never really know where you're going to find information relating to Britain. Just to give an obvious example, when I researched the West African Students' Union, which I wrote about many, many years ago, all the papers of the West African Students' Union are in Nigeria or many of them. There are there is material here, but the bulk of the material is in Nigeria. Why shouldn't it be? But just for example, if you're looking at West African Students' Union, so you need to go to Nigeria, then there's material in the British Library. There's material in the National Archives at Q. I found material in Washington, D.C. You never know when you're where you're going to find stuff. So that will give you some idea. Then today, there's a lot of material which is online. There's a lot of archival material online. I mentioned, for example, the 18th century. There's now a lot of stuff online. If you wanted to read, you know, Equiano's narrative, for example, you don't have to buy it anymore, it's online. You can look at it there. If you wanted to look into adverts for the sale of African men, women and children, there's now a whole archive produced by the University of Glasgow. You can go to that. It also shows you the notices and adverts for those who liberated themselves from bondage by running away throughout the country. That's all online. And you can look at that from your bed if you want to. And there's other material, a very good site is the Old Bailey site. I don't know if anyone's familiar with that. Old Bailey site is very good for 18th century, 19th century. There's loads of stuff. There's no shortage of material. So the, I don't want to say the difficulty, but the challenge is kind of trying to put it all together in a way that makes some sense and makes the points you want to make and is reflective of the history and can tell us something about not just about African and Caribbean people in Britain, but about the history of Britain and Britain's relationship with other parts of the world and so on. So that's the idea, whether I've succeeded, you'll have to read the book and tell me whether I have or not. OK, lady over here and then the guy up there. Hello, Professor Addy. Thank you so much for your presentation and your work. I want to ask you in terms of seeing the change you really want to see, i.e. racism, anti-racism and taking the long view, how far along do you think we've come and how far along do we still need to go? I would like your reflections also in terms of legislation, particularly in combating things like institutional racism. Well, that's a difficult one to answer. I mean, I think one of the things that I tried to bring out in the book again, I'm not sure how successful I'd be, you will have to judge is that Britain has a very long tradition of anti-racism. But it's a tradition that's not very well known or presented. We're perhaps more familiar with Britain's tradition of racism. That's particularly in the modern period, that's to say, from the mid 17th century onwards, we we're or perhaps we're more familiar with Britain's racism, the racism of the philosophers of, you know, human, Locke and others, as well as other aspects of racism, of state racism, of enslavement, of colonialism and so on. These are all aspects of Britain's history of racism, one can say, but the, of course, wherever there is oppression of which racism is a part, there will be struggle against it. And one of the things I try and do in the book is I can't go into it in detail, but I try and say something about the history of anti-racism. And that also one can find in regard to Africans, the people of African heritage in particular, and so that anti-racism developed alongside racism, and one finds that in the 17th century many people speaking out against racism, against slavery, people of different backgrounds, some philosophers, some more Christians. You said, how can you, you know, how can you be enslaving God's creations, God's children, who this is like, you know, this is a sin against God, for example, or the idea that some people, some human beings could be inferior, that this is anti-Christian, again, is so people put forward all these kinds of arguments and many others. And then if we go forward, as I mentioned, that the in the 18th century where Africans were liberating themselves and organising themselves to become liberated, obviously they were assisted by the general population of this country. And in fact, the the the racists, the enslavers, complain and say, look, when you bring these Africans over here, they get affected by all these people in Britain who teach them about liberty. And anyway, they sell all these kinds of things. So it's it's very evident. And there's lots of examples of people being helped to escape, to free themselves and so on. And then I mentioned the London Corresponding Society, which is a good example of an organisation that came out of that struggle for abolitionism. Why is abolition such a big thing in Britain? Because millions of people were opposed to slavery and so and also linked it with their own oppression. I said, well, we've got the same enemy, so those are oppressing us. Also oppressing people in Africa. People wrote songs and so on. But this isn't a history that's well known. And for obvious reasons. Because the powers that be those who were the. Enslavers and maybe are still the enslavers don't want people to know their history. They prefer a different history. Well, they say, well, the problem of racism is it's all these people in Britain who are racist. Not us, not the government. We're not racist, but ordinary people are all racist and so on. So that's what's presented. And it creates a lot of problems. I remember years ago, the Bicentennial. Some of you are old enough to remember that 2007. Well, there was a great Wilberfest, a great celebration of Britain's parliamentary act, which is another history that's distorted and falsified. But anyway, at that time, there was a lot of discussion about slavery, anti-slavery, slavery, but mainly. I remember going around the country and he'd meet. I met this teacher, young English woman. And we're talking. She said, oh, this is all so embarrassing, like very difficult to teach. I said, why is it difficult to teach? She said, oh, one is so embarrassed, you know, feel so guilty. I said, why? She said, oh, well, my ancestors were, you know, enslaving people. So we're talking about. It's more likely your ancestors were signing a petition against human trafficking or refusing to take sugar in their tea. Why would you think otherwise? But this is what is promoted, that everybody's a racist. Everybody's ancestors were racist and so on. That's not to say that they're not examples of. Racism, of course. And then one needs to look into it in the book. For example, I talk about the problems in amongst workers in the 1930s, when a lot of black workers in this country were seafarers and were based in the port cities like Liverpool and Cardiff and so on. And there was racism in that. That employment, but then you actually look into what was going on. And you find where the ship owners were trying to create divisions because if they could create divisions amongst the workers and pay black workers less, then they could drive down the wages of all the workers. And also they'd have some black workers in reserve and they could bring them in to break strikes and all kinds of things. So they sowed that division and then they got the union leaders to back them up. And the union leaders said, oh, we're not going to have black people in our union, all kinds of things like this. And the effect of it was that the seamen were divided. And anyway, one go into the whole history, but people opposed that. And you had, you know, British people who said, no, we can't have this workers are being divided and we must stop this racism and point the finger at who's responsible for it. So anyway, all this to say that. This struggle is the history. So your question is how far we got? Well, we're we're in it. So when you're in the struggle, you're not really necessarily sure how far you've got until you've. One. So we haven't won yet. But, you know, we're. We're in struggle and. What we learn from history are the principles of that struggle. You know, what is successful and what's unsuccessful? And as I said, the London Correspondence Society showed us the principles in the 18th century. That if you fight for the rights of Africans, you should fight for the rights of the working people, generally. If you fight for the rights of the workers, you fight for the rights of Africans, well, should fight for the rights of all. So if you have that principle and you put it into practice, then you make advances. But if you have some other principle, then you don't tell you, you know, it's a slower thing. So that's how I was look at it. And what comes out of that is you you identify the problem and who's the enemy. And the key thing is not to be fighting amongst yourselves, but to make sure you're fighting the enemy kind of thing and being clear who what the problem is. And which is not always straightforward. But the key thing is to be in struggle and to stand up for what's right and what's important and organise other people to be take up these things. Anyway, that's how I would look at it. That's a bit of a, anyway, it's difficult one to answer in these. We've got two questions. Gentlemen, in the third row from the back, then behind and then over there. But just watch them. So this this guy here, then the lady behind and over there. But just whilst just before you speak, I'd just like to point out, bringing it up to the present day that tomorrow at the Institute of Education, an organisation called Stand Up to Racism is organised in a conference. So that's part of the history and the struggle against racism being brought right up to the present. So if everybody is interested, it's just not sure what direction, just over there, Institute of Education. You can Google or whatever to find out the precise details. OK, over to you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Adi, for what you for your talk and for the insights that you've given. I learned about a lot of people that I never knew about, which is amazing. But I wanted to ask you if you could potentially talk about the impact of the work that people like you have been doing for the past 30 to 50 years on revealing so how deeply entrenched slavery and people being enslaved was in Britain and the paper trail that seems to be incredibly vast and how much that the fact that it's such a deep paper trail, how much that's impacted the legal and political claim for reparations, as opposed to the moral claim for reparations, which everybody I think agrees is unequivocal. You can't really fight that one. So a legal and moral claim that can be brought against the British government and actually a lot of landed families that still exist. How much of the, so, yeah, taking the fact that you said there were obviously two sides in the struggle. Those who are pro-slavery and those who are anti-slavery. I'm just curious as to how much it's the human rights the historical work you've done has informed people building a stronger case for reparations that's actually legally grounded. I, to be honest with you, I don't think it's a it's a legal issue, really. I don't I don't think it's sorry. Why so? My ear. Sorry. I don't think it's really a legal question to be frank with you. It's more a you could say more political question. I mean, there are different types of repair that's required. So some repair is. You know, one can see it happening around the world like the return of stolen artifacts, for example, is you could say it's fairly straightforward. You would think. But then in the case of Britain and particularly in the the case of the big institutions of Britain is not straightforward because the institutions like the British Museum have a colonialist approach to these things. They say, you know, we're not going to give them back because we're better at looking after them than people in Africa are. We might lend them possibly after we've trained you appropriately. So that's not a legal issue. That's a question of a colonial outlook that says we've stolen this stuff. The British Museum of says acquired is the word they use and you're not going to have it. So I'm leaving aside government, for example, so the issue is then what steps do you have to take or does one have to take to reclaim those stolen things? So that's not a legal question. I don't think I mean, there are all kinds of international bodies, including, you know, UNESCO and others. I mean, they're already the precedent, not the precedents are there, but the principle is established, as you pointed out. But it's it's changing the, you could say, the political will. And similarly with, you know, if you wanted to go to the to the king or the monarchy in general and say, well, a monarchy is what is this valued at seventy two billion, I think. The last monarch's personal wealth, I think it was twenty three million. And the current monarch. I think his estate increased by twenty million just last year. So if you wanted to go to them and say, well, you've done some study, their wealth must have come from somewhere. Where did their wealth come from? And we think you should make some repair and so on. I mean, again, that's not a legal question. It's a question of how would you would? Appropriate what is the due of those who need to repair needs to be carried out for and so on. The other issue about repair is it's not just something that is about what happened in the past. Because that. Damage still continues because the relationship between Britain and Africa or Britain and the Caribbean or Britain and other places in the world still exists as an unequal relationship. And it has various forms, you know, as something called a common wealth, which is strangely named, because there is what is this common wealth that. But anyway, they have these ties and so on, which still exists. So the repair needs to start with what is ongoing. So in other words, it needs to be a transformation of the relationship that Britain has with other countries and with other peoples as well as people within within this country. And that is those are political questions to me. That's a political issue. And you could think of it in this way, what kind of government would we need to have in this country to bring these things about? Will it be a Liz trust sort of government? Or would it be a what's his name? Starmer kind of government. What's his name? Whatever his name is, you know, the one I'm talking about. That's it. Sorry. Sorry. What kind of government would it be that would say, yeah, of course, we're going to make repair for all these crimes that Britain has carried out over the centuries? It's quite difficult to imagine. And even if it was a Mr. Corbyn type of government, do you think that the powers that be in this country would allow Mr. Corbyn kind of government to make that repair? I doubt it. So then you raise the question, OK, what kind of government? So if we were the government, we would do these things. Wouldn't we? So that really answers the question. Question is how how can we empower ourselves so that we are the decision makers on all of these questions? Whether it's in relation to museums or it's in relation to. Any other question? Or even it could be a relation to the economy. How do we make sure that we are we are we empower ourselves that we made the decisions? So that's a question of power, not a legal question. That's such I think. OK, so. Question here. We then got a question from online, which I will take. And then we're probably going to have the final question from. Faisalna, who is a member of staff here, and then we'll begin to wind up. OK, so if you can keep your questions precise, please. And responses concise as well. Please. OK, I'm not known for the decision of my responses. OK, I'm complex questions require. I'll give a one word answer to the next question. Maybe we're talking about thousands of years here, so I think we can give you a bit of license to try and respond. I'm from Global African Congress UK, which is an international reparations organisation. And so a lot of what you've said answers some of the questions that I had. But one of the things that you started saying that I'm not sure I heard right was that you seemed to have a problem with calling people property and not using the term enslavement. And I just wondered if if you could explain what the issue was that you had about that. It was when we're talking about the. No, there's no issue that I mean, people who were enslaved were property. They were owned by other people as property. They were bought and sold. They were property. I mean, they were. That's what slavery is, essentially the ownership of another human being. That was almost one word. Pretty proud of it. Well done. I'll go to the question which we've received online and I'm paraphrasing slightly, but we do have an audience online as well, just so that everybody's aware. And so the question is, how can African history be taught? Or how should African history be taught in secondary school? OK. Well, there are all kinds of possibilities now because there are. Curricular and even exams in. The study and the teaching of African history, it tends at the moment to revolve largely around these kind of pre-colonial kingdoms of the type that are favored by so-as or used to be favored by so-as when I was here. So, like, you know, ancient Ghana, Mali, Songai, Benin, Kanem, Borne, Congo and so on. So that that's a sort of tradition that's developed over the quite a long time. And so there are ways there are the possibility of teaching that there are online materials, all kinds of resources for the teaching of our history. And I'm sure it's it's being done in. Innovative ways, I'm not sure I can say much more about that. I think it's pretty there's material out there. And there's going to be a conference that actually the British Library of all people are holding a conference for teachers in April about the teaching of the history of Africa and of the African diaspora as well. I know because they've asked me to to speak at it. I pointed out to them that one of the problems with the falsification of history was the British Library, sorry, the British Museum. British Library is another issue, another question. Save them for another day, the British Museum. Yeah, sorry. OK, Faisalna and OK, Faisalna, briefly. And then you raise briefly. I'll allow I'll allow you in. OK. Oh, I wasn't looking at you. It's because you're a Ghanaian. Yeah, we don't want any favouritism. Can I go on? Yeah, are you sure? Yeah, I think actually you've partly answered the question. My question was also to do with how you see the your book, how how it can have an impact in secondary schools. You have the amazing organisation Black Curriculum that's taken on their own shoulders to go into schools and teach, you know, those parts of history which are not being taught. I mean, it's very patchy history, I think, in secondary schools. So I was wondering if you had worked with secondary schools to teach about people's African Caribbean heritage and how you see your book having an impact for children between 11 to 18. Well, I'll answer that by there are many organisations that work in schools. What one of them? Anyway, let me put it this way. I've been working in schools for 30 old years. And we set up Basteren in 1991. One of the first major reasons for doing that was to talk to teachers about how to teach and so on. Now I mainly work with young people, young historians project, that go into schools, talk to young people and they're young people themselves. So they know how to present things to other young people. They also research history and present it online in exhibitions, in film. They are launching some material tomorrow together with the publishers, Lonson, Wishheart and Routon Road. If anyone's interested in the event starts at three o'clock in the afternoon and you'll see what young people are producing and how they're working with students. So there are many organisations. I always get a bit upset when people mention one organisation as if it's doing all these things, whether it is just another matter. But there are lots of organisations and young people who work with schools and teachers and have done for many years. One of the problems we have today is that the national curriculum is becoming increasingly meaningless. Because most schools and academies don't follow the national curriculum and don't have to follow it. So that's shifted the goalposts and so on. But there's a lot of interest amongst teachers of teaching the kind of history which exists in my book. And the book provides context, more details. It provides references, it provides websites, it provides places people can go and find out more about this history. So yeah, that's how I would answer your question. OK, Grace, final question. Thank you. I've been teaching at the British Museum for 17 years and I'm probably one of the lone black educators. Don't look old. And I'm very much aware and now I'm a councillor. And I know it's difficult. You talked to me before. I'm a councillor and I know it's difficult. You talked about the criticisms, the backlash and stay strong. How do you continue to stay strong? Because I just, the institutional racism, there is an official discourse. I'm not allowed to speak the truth. I've started to backlash myself at the British Museum. And I just want you to know that I congratulate you on your work. And I think you need to keep going on because it's really hard out there. We're seeing, in fact now, the curriculum is what they want, the government wants to restrict it. We seem to be going backwards. You see, the backlash you're experiencing, I'm having to deal with this for 17 years at the British Museum and I refuse to keep quiet anymore. So I just want to know your thoughts about that, really. Thank you so much. OK, so much. Well, I mean, that's, as I said earlier, that's the nature of the struggle. That's what you expect. I mean, that's the kind of society that we live in. That's not to say we should, you know, we're in a society where, which has this whole legacy of, this whole colonial legacy, legacy of enslavement and an exploitation of other countries, of intervention of other countries, of racism in this country and so on. And of all sorts of other problems. And so to, you could say, overturn all that, to turn it around, to turn around the kind of weight of centuries is obviously not a straightforward thing to do if it was, we'd have done it. But it comes about what history shows us, is that changes brought about by people like us doing the things that we do and doing more and encouraging and organizing other people to do them with a clear idea of what it is we're trying to do and that kind of thing. So that's how I look at it. We go on doing these things because they need to be done as long as we have, you know, life and strength to do them. And when we no longer have life and strength, there'll be others. This is why I work with young people because I realize that now I'm old-ish. And I can't act as I did when I was 20 maybe, but there are lots of people who are 20 with lots of energy and enthusiasm and they can do all these things and go out to organize and do all the things that they do. So one of the key things about organizing, you could say, or about the struggle, is training and encouraging the next generation. Because if you don't leave anything behind as it were, then, you know, your contribution is somehow minimized. So we have to encourage and train young people to take up these things. And I'm very happy with, you know, Young Historians Project. I mean, they're just the amazing things. And a lot of them are studying history. Some of them are now doing PhDs. Some of them are doing involved in other things. Some of them are archivists. Some of them are all kinds of amazing things. And there are, we live in a country where there are hundreds of thousands, millions of amazing people. And the issue is to organize, galvanize them into not a trickle, but a mighty torrent that washes away all this rubbish. And, you know, you see in those young people and other young people that that's the future of Britain. So how to encourage them and to give whatever knowledge and experience we have to. So, you know, I don't see any reason to be a way despondent or, as they say, the struggle continues. And as we can see the power of beer in disarray. So, you know, obviously that also brings us dangerous. But anyway, that's getting a bit political. So I'll stop there. Okay. So we're coming to an end where we're going to move on outside and there is a wine reception. There will be an opportunity to purchase this wonderful book and also get personally signed. But just before we close, I'd like to just give a few words of thanks. As Hakeem just mentioned, the thousands, millions of people in this country, I'd like to highlight that an awful lot of people have inputted into making today happen. And quite often they're the people who we sometimes forget. So thanking our catering staff, our cleaning staff, the marketing team, our security. And one of them was here, but he seems to have run off our wonderful student ambassadors. And I'm going to highlight again, a particular person who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes, not just for this event here today, but other events and to ensure that SOWAS celebrates the Marks Black History Month in the spirit of putting that A back in SOWAS. So Rukia, please stand up. I'd like everybody to give you a round of applause. I would like to thank our former student of SOWAS, Professor Hakeem, for giving such an informative and inspirational presentation. I encourage everybody to buy the book. I encourage you all, if you haven't got them, to think about purchasing his other books, including the one that was shown on the screen, which I've got in my bag. I didn't bring it out here to edit. And also to the many students in the room, students of history who are based at SOWAS, who are outside of SOWAS, community historians do the research, research the history and begin to write it. As Professor told us, this is a history. It's not the entire history. And there are many of you in this room who can contribute to writing that history. And one place I will say, and in many places where you can find the history, a lot of the history is in your homes, your parents, your grandparents, your aunties, your uncles. Grace, you know your father's chest. Exactly. I've just come back from Ghana. I found documents and photographs in my mum's suitcases and chest, et cetera. So talk to your parents. Talk to your grandparents. Talk to your neighbours. Those of you who are from in particular West Africa, look at some of those funeral brochures. You know what I mean? The history of British Fees and you know, Auntie did this in 1956 and 94 years. Let's share our history. Let's write our history. Because the history of African and Caribbean in Britain is not just the history of us, the African and Caribbean. It's the history of the whole of Britain. And every child needs to know the history of where we are today. So that they can make that contribution towards making Britain and the world better tomorrow. And on that note, I'd like everyone to applaud each other and we can go forward. Buy the book, get it signed, and have a glass of wine.