October 2024’s Black History Month arrives on the back of some of the most shocking race riots the UK has seen in many, many years. The weaponisation of the brutal and tragic attack on young girls and their tutors in Southport, which ignited riots across the UK and racist and Islamophobic attacks on people, communities and institutions, including Mosques, testifies, in the centenary of his birth, to the words of James Baldwin about the lack of humanity of the fascist and far right groups.
Writing on the Wall’s Black History Month Programme for October 2024 has been created to respond to those events and highlight the work we and our partners and communities have been delivering since our inception in 2000.
‘Reclaiming Narratives,’ the national theme for Black History Month, highlights the ongoing need to offer a platform for black and ethnic minority writers, artists and communities to celebrate their integral contribution to British cultural, social and political life, and offer a contrast to the bigoted insular world view of the far right groups and populist politicians – who sow doubt and spread falsehoods, adding to the racist contagion which resulted in Liverpool’s Spellow Lane Library being torched.
Our Creative Heritage work rescues lost, forgotten, or neglected archives, giving voice to stories marginalised by mainstream history. In the Great War to Race Riots Archives, black workers describe their destitution, colour bars, and racial violence in 1919, not through the lens of researchers, but in their own words. The George Garret Archive features a working-class activist’s scathing critique of the Seafarers Union’s racist leadership. Dorothy Kuya’s archive offers a window into 20th-century race relations, echoing the L8 Archives’ testimony to the struggles of black communities worldwide, to shape their own narratives against racism.
Despite black and diverse histories still not being taught in schools and in the face of the phony culture wars and the establishment’s continued insistence on whitewashing our history, we know that Black History Month, and initiatives such as our Creative Heritage Programme have a deep and significant impact. The recent British social attitudes survey conducted by the National Centre for Social Research shows that the UK has become less nationalistic and jingoistic and, most sharply, less proud of the history of the British Empire and its colonial legacy.
This may not chime with the scenes of violent racism unleashed on the streets of Liverpool this August, but we must remind ourselves that those racists who vented their anger on a community library, and in cowardly attacks on individuals, remain a minority in British society.
During Black History Month we look to historical lessons of how the far right have been marginalised and ultimately defeated, through education, music and culture, community and trade union activism and, as we saw in the magnificent anti-racist demonstrations in cities and towns across the UK, by confronting them and reclaiming the streets.
Most importantly during this Black History Month we send a message of solidarity from Writing on the Wall to all communities affected by recent events, and we declare ‘Whose streets? Our streets!’
Black History Month 24: Events
Find out more about the exhibitions; Echoes From The Islands, Beyond The Bassline and Liverpool: Next Stop New York.
This Black History Month WoWs’ Co-directors Madeline Heneghan and Mike Morris, and Creative Heritage Manager Janaya Pickett, have been invited to deliver The National Archives impact seminar and to present WoW’s unique model of working with archives that gives community participants the chance to develop archiving skills, as well as inspire creative work based on the hidden histories that we uncover.
The Great War to Race Riots tour explores anti-black race riots that occurred in Liverpool and other seaports across the country in 1919. This tour covers the area now known as Chinatown and the Baltic Triangle, which at the beginning of the 20th century was a densely populated and multicultural neighbourhood known locally as ‘sailor town.’
The George Garrett Walking Tour covers the L1 postcode area, touring a landscape that has changed (and continues to change) dramatically. The tour explores the life, writings and activism of George Garrett a ‘militant advocate of tolerance’ who travelled the world and whose work explored the poverty and struggle of the working class in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
Join us for a special one-off screening of Bea Freeman’s renowned 1985 documentary They Haven’t Done Nothing. This film delves into the historical context and lasting impact of the uprisings, highlighting the struggles against unemployment, racism, and police harassment faced by the Black community in Liverpool. Over four decades later, the event seeks to draw lessons for addressing today’s challenges, in light of the recent racist riots in August.
Your Local Arena is a unique project featuring iconic films from the archives of BBC TV’s Arena, the pioneering cultural documentary series.
The L8 Activism Walking Tour invites you to take a stroll down the beautiful tree-lined Victorian Boulevard and explore the history of Liverpool 8, the traditional home of the black community since the mid 20th century. This tour charts the area’s development since it’s the origins as a merchant class neighbourhood in the mid-late 19th century, to dilapidation and multiple occupancy and back to one of the most desirable areas to live in 2024.
The Dorothy Kuya Walking Tour explores the impact of Dorothy Kuya’s anti-racist activism in modern Britain as we explore the Liverpool and the L8 area.
Babylon’s Burning with Rick Blackman is in partnership with Love Music Hate Racism.
Join us in remembering and celebrating the impact and legacy of sound system culture in Liverpool, with an evening of discussion, deejays and dancing. Featuring music from the original Strugglers’ Sound System, from the days of The Frontline.
The Liverpool & Slavery Walking Tour was developed and inspired by our Dorothy Kuya Archive Project, in collaboration with National Museums Liverpool. During the project our team revealed the extent of Dorothy’s involvement in the establishment of the Atlantic Slave Trade Gallery, Slavery Remembrance Day and the International Slavery Museum. Along with Liverpool activist and historian Eric Lynch (1932-2022), Dorothy delivered slavery walking tours in collaboration with NML in the mid 1990s. It is local black activists like Dorothy and Eric that have played an integral role in how Liverpool remembers and commemorates its heavy involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
