Kate's Gallery Walk

Black Britain: an online gallery walk
(Under construction.)

This is a gallery walk for students in English 384: Black British Fiction. As we will be studying contemporary Black British authors, it helps to know a bit about the history of people of African and Afro-Caribbean descent in Britain.

There have been people of Africa and the African diaspora in Britain for centuries. There is evidence that there were blacks in Britain during the Roman occupation. More recently this list of parish records notes the presence of blacks in Britain as early as 1565. Here is an article about black soldiers who served in the British military as early as the mid-18th century.

However, Britain has only had a large population of African-descended peoples since the mid-twentieth century. The first large wave of immigration from the Caribbean is marked by the arrival of the Empire Windrush, which docked at Tilbury, England, in 1948, carrying ex-British servicemen and others who wished to work in Britain. Read Mike Phillips's page about the Empire Windrush passengers, on the BBC website. Many immigrants also came to Britain from Africa, and they joined an increasingly multi-cultural 20th century Britain, with sizeable populations of people of Asian (especially South Asian) origin and descent, as well as immigrants and descendants of immigrants from all corners of the earth.

While immigrants from the Caribbean were encouraged to come to live and work in Britain after World War II, it was not long before Britain would start to experience racial tensions. In 1958, there were race riots in Nottingham and Notting Hill, Fascists such as Oswald Mosley were running on an anti-immigration platform, and by 1962 legislation was being passed to limit immigration.

Black British people have been active in all areas of British life: literature, music, the arts are no exception. Take a look at this slideshow of Vanley Burke's photography (documenting black British life).

Here are some lists of Black and Asian fiction writers and Black British Poets.