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FYI

At the last What's Happening in Black British History Hannah-Rose Murray who created www.frederickdouglassinbritain.com a map Douglass's  travels in the UK delivered a paper on here work:

Mapping Black Abolitionists in Britain

African American abolitionists made an indelible mark on nineteenth century Britain. Their lectures were held in famous meeting

halls, taverns, the houses of wealthy patrons, theatres, and churches across the country. I have mapped Black abolitionist

journeys in Britain and Ireland from the 1830s to the 1890s, and such visualizations reveal that Britons inevitably and unknowably

walk past sites with a rich history of Black activism every day.

In this talk I will outline some of the key figures associated with this mapping project including Frederick Douglass, Moses Roper

and Ida B. Wells, and illustrate how this project has brought new research into light. For example, recording and visualizing

Frederick Douglass’ journey around Britain not only highlights his exhausting lecturing schedule, but also the extensive

abolitionist network he helped to forge.

He travelled to Britain at a time of great industrial change and thus he was able to tap into new transport links slowly emerging

in Britain. He wrote on his return to America he had “made use of all the various means of conveyance, by land and sea, from

town to town, and city to city” and travelled the length and breadth of the country. He had “journeyed upon highways, byways,

railways, and steamboats” and stated, “I have myself gone, I might say, with almost electric speed.” The rapidity of the railway

boom was unprecedented and transformed British society: journeys were faster, time was standardized, ship-building increased,

trade was made easier and quicker between towns and the countryside. Recognizing this, Douglass argued in Leeds in 1846, that

“what is uttered this day in the Music Hall of Leeds, will, within fourteen days resound in Massachusetts.”

I will also outline the website she has created and two maps highlighting abolitionist speaking locations, the main focus of which

was to make black American contributions to British society more visible. The website can be viewed here at

www.frederickdouglassinbritain.com


Michael I. Ohajuru
Senior Fellow Inst of Commonwealth Studies
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On Mon, 10 Sep 2018 at 12:08, MSherwood <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

To follow my previous email and the responses from some of you, please see below …  A colleague in Edinburgh believes that the exhibition she mentions is will focus on where, to whom and on what Douglass (and perhaps others) addressed assemblies and meetings

 

Were there parish registers in Scotland? They are certainly one way of uncovering the Black presence. As are all those paintings with Black servants in the background…

 

From: BERNIER Celeste-Marie [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 September 2018 04:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: | The University of Edinburgh

 

Dear Marika Sherwood,

 

Thank you so much for your kind email and I hope all's really wonderful with you. For your kind information I work across the history, politics, literature, visual cultures, philosophy and intellectual history as well as material cultures of African diasporic peoples, enslaved and free, from the 17th centuries until now.

 

In terms of research that includes information related to Scotland, I'm curating an exhibition Strike for Freedom which opens at the National Library of Scotland in October. We've also been working on and we're about to go live on the first map of African American activism in the city (both print and digital publications). Every day I am grateful to the brilliant wonderful researchers who are undertaking trailblazing work in the areas of Scotland and Africa that inspire me on with everything they do.

 

Yours sincerely,

Celeste-Marie Bernier 

 

Celeste-Marie Bernier

Professor of Black Studies and Personal Chair in English Literature

Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal of American Studies, Cambridge University Press

School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

University of Edinburgh

George Square

Edinburgh

EH8 9LH

Scotland

 


From: MSherwood <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 09 September 2018 15:59
To: BERNIER Celeste-Marie
Subject: | The University of Edinburgh

 

Dear Professor Barnier,

 

I am writing to congratulate you and with apologies, ask a question.

 

I am delighted that the University has created a professorship of Black Studies. However, on reading about you on the web, your interest seems to be mainly on literature and arts. And on Frederick Douglass.  So will you these be the foci of ‘Black Studies’?

 

What I would like is a massive amount of research on the relationship between Scotland and Africa, and on the presence/reception/experience of peoples of African origins/descent in Scotland! Should I be hopeful?

 

Yours sincerely,

Marika Sherwood

Sr Research Fellow

ICwS

University of London

 

 



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