Marika,
We are making some progress here in Nottingham. I hope this will be useful
for furthering local Black History work. Much of it needs to be melded into
mainstream Nottingham history.
Our Nottingham LEA is doing great stuff with an e-learning programme which
will include a section on George Africanus our first black entrepreneur. The
museum's set of exhibition panels for loan on Africanus is becoming well
used by schools, one of which has done some good creative work on slavery.
We are trying to monitor its use and collect and examples of class work that
we can to see how best to improve the next version we produce of it.
George's great granddaughter, (Esther Africanus Cropper) married and moved
to London. Her daughter is last known in Kingston, married to a GP. We
believe the next in line to be a surgeon. Watch this space!
Nottingham City Museums Community History section have a good but little
known) collection of ca. 200 pre-1878 objects from Nigeria in the museum. We
have found little data on them in our archives but had a very good 2 month
student project with four people (including Anna Catalani) from the
University of Leicester Museum Studies course working with this collection.
They produced most useful photographs and worked hard to find out more about
the objects and donors. Our database will be much the richer for their work
and accessible to all enquirers when we have it all entered. We hope to have
a museum web presence sometime this year where at least some this
information will be accessible to all.
The Nottingham City LEA e-learning work will (I hope) also include some if
not all of the small exhibition we did on Yoruba Spirituality here at the
Museum of Nottingham Life at Brewhouse Yard, where I work. One of the
Leicester Museum Studies' students, Ann Catalani, is doing her Ph.D. on our
Nigerian collection. Part of the doctorate covers the provision of the
small exhibition on Yoruba Objects of Spirituality in the Museum of
Nottingham Life at Brewhouse Yard which was held last Spring. We managed to
get funding for the lamination of A1 panels, so the well illustrated panels
are available to schools or other local borrowers.
The Community History section of Nottingham City Museums is also beginning
work with Nottingham City LEA's Cultural Diversity officer. I have great
hopes of sharing information and contacts. We have much material in our
World Cultures collections (now part of Community History) that relates to
local people which we are making more accessible. There is much that the
Nottingham people can share with us about the background, uses and relevance
of that material collected in colonial times.
Also, the Antiquities section also has much good Egyptian material which is
immediately relevant to Afrikan history. If we can reclaim our display space
in Nottingham Castle we can make much of our Afrikan History material
there.
The Nottingham City Museums and Galleries new project at Nottingham Castle
is entitled Threads and will show much material from both Nottingham and
around the world. It will involve local groups working with our Access Team
in making art, creative writing and a community cloak for wearing and for
display. We will also be purchasing material that each community group feels
is important for us to have over a period of the next 5 years or so. This
way our museum collections will be much enriched and local people will have
further access to making their own displays.
Newstead Abbey (one of the Nottingham City Museums and home of Lord Byron)is
doing work on their Black history links. The then owner was good friends
with David Livingstone. David Livingstone's friends, James Susi and
Abdullah Chuma, came back to Newstead Abbey to stay with Col. Wildman at
Newstead when they brought Livingstone's body back to England to be buried
in Westminster Abbey. One of them is said to married a Nottinghamshire girl
at Wellow, although I haven't been able to confirm this yet. The Newstead
work is being co-ordinated by our museum's Access Team which goes from
strength to strength.
At the Museum of Nottingham Life at Brewhouse Yard we plan in 2005 to have
an exhibition on the Jamaican people's migration Nottingham working with
Louise Dyer-Garvey who has collected many stories from Nottingham people and
items from her Jamaican family and friends that would have been the sorts of
material brought to Nottingham. This will certainly be on laminated panels
in a borrowable format.
There is a growing number of people in Nottingham who are interested in a
wide range of aspects of local Black History, and in Afrikan history itself.
Len Garrison's time in Nottingham inspired many people in diverse ways. I
hope we can keep the momentum growing and make the information around in the
community and community centres and the information and objects that we have
in the museums, archives and libraries more accessible to everyone.
We'd love to hear of other ways we could maximize this work. Our resources
are quite limited.
Suella
Suella Postles
Keeper of Community History
Nottingham City Museums
Brewhouse Yard Museum
Castle Boulevard
Nottingham
NG7 1FB
0115 9153602
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Marika Sherwood [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 19 February 2004 18:01
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 100 GREAT BLACK BRITONS CAMPAIGN
Suella, congrats. It seems to me that current Black Achievers is an
excellent idea.
The level of historical ignorance displayed - or so it seemed to me - by the
results
on the web-site is very sad indeed. But what can we expect given the
National History curriculum?
Marika
----- Original Message -----
From: "Suella Postles" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Marika Sherwood" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 2:25 PM
Subject: Re: 100 GREAT BLACK BRITONS CAMPAIGN
> Patrick,
> Your site has inspired the Nottingham Evening Post to do a selection of 10
> Black Achievers in Nottingham. I've managed to persuade them to include
> women as well. I'm hoping that the preliminary nomination of 10 Black
> Achievers in Nottingham will be only the first and that this will inspire
> many more nominations, drawn from local people. I've suggested that they
> have something like this as a weekly feature. We'll see.
>
> Suella Postles
> Keeper of Community History
> Nottingham City Museums
> Brewhouse Yard
> Nottingham
> NG7 1FB
> 0115-9153602
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: patrick vernon [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 11 February 2004 20:14
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: 100 GREAT BLACK BRITONS CAMPAIGN
>
>
> The results of 100 Great Black Britons are now our website
> www.100greatblackbritons.com
>
> The winner is Mary Seacole.
>
> On behalf of EveryGeneration I would like to thank the support and
positive
> words and encouragement on this campaign which has now put Black British
> history on the map in the national media and the public domain.
>
> Please check our latest website www.recog-nition.co.uk which is promoting
> and celebrating Black Achievement in Britain.
>
> It would be great to have your support in developing the site with
profiles,
> information,stories and events etc about all aspects of Recognition.
>
> Please fwd this email.
>
> Best Wishes
>
> Patrick Vernon
> www.everygeneration.co.uk
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