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I participate in an event not long ago and highlighted one of the late Dr Eric Williams’ books, ‘The Negro in the Caribbean’ in which he discusses how wages of 25 cents (one shilling) a day from 1838, caused misery for African Caribbean people there. Such a level of wages continued to the 1930s. He quotes from a speech made by Winston Churchill in 1939: ‘The West Indies, two hundred years ago, bulked very largely in the minds of all people who were making Britain and making the British Empire. Our possessions of the West Indies, like that of India – the colonial plantation and development, as they were called – give us the strength to, the support, but especially the capital, the wealth, at a time when no other European nation possessed such a reserve, which enabled us to come through the great struggle of the Napoleonic Wars, the keen competition of the commerce of the 18th and 19th centuries and enabled us not only to acquire this worldwide appendage of possessions we have, but also to lay the foundation of that commercial and financial leadership which, when the world was young, when everything outside Europe was undeveloped, enabled us to make our great position in the world.’ The contributions made from the 17th century by African-Caribbean people continues to enrich Britain today. The words/term ‘Windrush Generation’ is in vogue but it has been used before the 1990s. The heritage in the UK is grounded in the days of enslavement and colonialism. I highly recommend the book, Familiar Strangers (2017) by the late Professor Stuart Hall, who has a superb chapter called ‘The Windrush Generation’. Arthur --------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 May 2018 13:03:58 +0100 From: MSherwood <[log in to unmask]> Subject: BBC History Magazine June 2018 No articles of relevance to us except for Michael Wood's 'CommNet' piece: Immigration: "Many who arrived on the Windrush had risked their lives for Britain". He quotes from Bristol's first black ward-sister, the community leader Princess Campbell, interviewed in our series The Great British Story'. "... We were the former imperial power and everyone living in Britain had benefited from the empire - except, those who had lost their lives." To ignore those facts now, 70 years on, is not only to misrepresent our laws, it is also to misunderstand the meaning of our history. Articles are: Black Death Horrors Georgian parenting guide Arnhem: a disaster in the planning A history of dentistry The woman who crushed the Vikings Europe's Apocalypse (the war between Catholics and Protestants)