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Britain

Empire Windrush migrants arrive at Tilbury in 1948.

‘There were Africans in Britain before the English came here’

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

How Staying Power shook British history. When it was published in 1984 Staying Power vividly captured the struggle for black British identity. Nearly 35 years on it still has lessons to teach. By Gary Younge, The Guardian — “The very serious function of racism is distraction,” Toni Morrison argued in a lecture in Portland, Oregon, in 1975: It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and…

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‘A reparative justice programme’ … Glasgow University has completed a two-year review of how it grew wealthy from the slave trade. Photograph: University of Glasgow

Reparations for slavery are not about punishing children for parents’ sins

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

Reparative justice, whereby communities are compensated for losses caused by the slavery or the Holocaust, is morally fair. By Julian Baggini, The Guardian — Justice requires a good memory, one that is both accurate and not self-servingly selective. But whether it is well-served by a long memory is more contentious. We know that many still pay the price for sins previous generations never paid for. But most agree with the…

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Imperial Federation Map of the World showing the extent of the British Empire. The Empire in red in 1886, by Walter Crane

British Empire is still being whitewashed by the school curriculum – historian on why this must change

By Editors' Choice

By Deana Heath, The Conversation — Jeremy Corbyn has recently proposed that British school children should be taught about the history of the realities of British imperialism and colonialism. This would include the history of people of colour as components of, and contributors to, the British nation-state – rather than simply as enslaved victims of it. As Corbyn rightly noted: “Black history is British history” – and hence its study should be…

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19th Century illustration of British massacres in India

An empire bathed in blood: when Britannia ruled the waves

By Reparations

In a desperate bid to head off a Scottish Yes vote, David Cameron evoked a mythical British Empire that had given democracy to the poor and freedom to the slaves. Here Ken Olende looks back at what life was really like when Britannia ruled the waves. By The Socialist Worker — The British Empire was the largest ever known. It covered a quarter of the world’s land mass and ruled…

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Sir Ronald Sanders is Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador to the US and the OAS. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and Massey College in the University of Toronto. The views expressed are his own.

The Black must be discharged!

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Sir Ronald Sanders, Caribbean News Now! — Racism was the bedrock of European colonialism in the Caribbean. The subjugation, oppression and exploitation of African people as ‘sub-human’ was justified by colonial powers based on race and colour. A crucial fixture of the architecture of racism and oppression in British colonies in the Caribbean was a judicial system that assigned black people to the status of ‘property’. They belonged to…

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Young woman at a student protest in London against fees and cuts in 2010

The Black Studies Movement in Britain

By News & Current Affairs

By Kehinde Andrews, Black Perspectives — In 1967, the Afro-Caribbean Self-Help Organisation (ACSHO), based in Birmingham, started one of the first Black supplementary schools in the UK, sparking off a movement that transformed how mainstream schools treated their Black children. Supplementary schools refer to voluntary education programs run by concerned parents, teachers, and community members because of the racism faced in the school system.

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Jamaican immigrants aboard the "Empire Windrush" in 1948.

The Caribbean Immigrants Who Transformed Britain

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Kaila Philo, The New Republic — Seventy years ago today—June 22, 1948—a passenger ship carrying 492 Jamaican immigrants arrived in Essex, London. The Empire Windrush was the first of many ships to come, as the British government recruited migrants from the Caribbean Commonwealth to help rebuild the economy after World War II. These arrivals came to be known as the Windrush generation. “It is unclear how many people belong to the Windrush generation,…

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