Michael Holding and Ebony Rainford-Brent’s hard-hitting and moving speech on the striving for racial justice stirred sports fan and others. Thank you.
Michael Holding in his prime was a magnificent fast bowler in the all-conquering West Indies cricket teams sides of the 1970s.
Both the England and West Indies team and all the officials took part in the Take The Knee event at the beginning of the first test match of the series.
Holding on white power…
“Everybody has heard about this lady in a park in America who was asked by a black man to put her dog on a leash, which is the law,” Holding said.
“She threatened this black man with her whiteness, saying that she was going to call the police and tell them there was a black man threatening her.
“If the society in which she was living did not empower her or get her to think that she had that power of being white and being able to call the police on a black man, she would not have done it.
“It was an automatic reaction because of the society in which she lives. If you don’t educate people they will keep growing up in that sort of society and you will not get meaningful change.”
"If you don't educate people, they'll keep growing up in that sort of society and you'll not get meaningful change."
One-time international cricketer Ebony Rainford-Brent said her piece, and she didn’t hold back either.
“I’ve been in team environments, dealing constantly with people referring to ‘your lot,’” she said with tears in her eyes.
“I questioned myself why I stayed sometimes so long, I love the game, I think it has so much more to offer.
Former English cricketer Ebony Rainford-Brent broke down talking about the impact of racism
“But it can be really difficult dealing with that day in day out.”
Ebony said education needs to change:
“It can’t be a ‘black person’s problem’, it has got to be everyone’s problem. We have got to want a society that is representative and supports people from different backgrounds,” she said.
“That’s what it is for me. We need honest conversations, opportunities and people in positions of power. And then we can change the landscape.”
Invention of the filament light bulb
Say his name: Lewis Howard Latimer – inventor of the light bulb, as we were reminded in the history lesson from Michael Holding. Thank you again.
Lewis Howard Latimer – inventor of the light bulb
That’s the most powerful half an hour of TV I’ve seen for a long, long time.
The Michael Holding story about the invention of the filament light bulb was extraordinary.
My name is Stephen Smith and sadly we lost our best friend Mr George Ziwa who was found totally decomposed in his flat in March.
Because of the Covid restrictions his body has only just been released by the coroner in High Wycombe, so we have only just set up his GoFundMe page so that his family in Uganda can give him the traditional African burial they have requested.
George Ziwa was a well known member of the Buckingham and Aylesbury community, he lived on the streets from 2012 until January 2019 when he moved into his flat.
Although George was responsible for the renovation of the local Red Cross Centre’s garden during 2017-2018 his lifestyle led to serious health complications.
George died on the 1 March 2020 and he was found at his home some weeks later.
I am appealing to everybody to help send George’s body home so his 80 year old mother can put him to rest under traditional African ceremony.
Please donate generously to the repatriation fund. Thank you:
George Ziwa was born on 28th June 1973 in Kampala, Uganda to Mrs Emma Namuli and the late George William Ziwa. He enjoyed a very close and dear relationship with his mother especially as he was her last born child. George went to school in Uganda and Kenya. He studied from S1 to S6 at Namilyango College, Uganda and he was a very active member of the Ngonian and the Namilyango College Old Boys Association (NACOBA). He later went to England where he studied Nursing at Luton and Dunstable Hospital with a specialisation in mental health. Upon qualifying, George worked at the Whiteleaf Mental Health Centre in Aylesbury as a State Registered Nurse. George lived in Buckinghamshire, England until his death.
George was a loving, caring and generous person and he was always eager to help. Whenever he went to Uganda on vacation, he often met the young homeless street-children to whom he bought food and drinks. George always carried his pink Bible which his sister Linda had offered to him and he fondly referred to himself as a soldier of Christ. He was part of the congregation at Buckingham Evangelical Church. In his youth, George had joined the Boys Scouts and he took great joy in all their activities while also treasuring the strong friendships that he built with his fellow scouts.
George passed away suddenly at the beginning of March 2020. He is survived by his two children, his mother and his siblings and he will be sadly missed by his family and numerous friends.
STREET names, statues, and building names across Wales are to be reviewed as part of plans to “challenge” controversial aspects of the nation’s history, including connections with the slave trade.
First minister Mark Drakeford has ordered an urgent “audit” of public landmarks, which will all be reviewed by a group with expert knowledge of the slave trade, the British Empire, and the history of black communities in Wales, a Welsh Government spokesperson said.
“This is not about rewriting the past – it is about reflecting it with the justice it deserves,” Mr Drakeford said in a statement.
The audit has been commissioned following the recent Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, which have brought together activists and members of the public calling for an end to racial injustice and inequality. more
Around 100 people in a sleepy village near Cardiff on Saturday, where artwork was defaced that showed solidarity with the black lives matter movement. First protest in this area I think in its history. Organised by SUTR and local BLM group – report by Hussein
Following the controversy surrounding the long overdue toppling of Confederate statues in the US and those of slave traders here in the UK, the Black Lives Matter movement is charged with wanting to erase history.
No, we want to tell the true story of what happened in history and its legacy today.
What follows is an excerpt from the Tate Modern celebrating American sculptor Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus –
Delve deeper into 2019’s Hyundai Commission by Kara Walker
Allegory in art is when the subject of the artwork, or the various elements that form the composition, is used …
‘My work has always been a time machine looking backwards across decades and centuries to arrive at some understanding of my “place” in the contemporary moment.’ – Kara Walker
Kara Walker is an artist whose work explores ideas around identity, race, sexuality and violence. She works in a variety of mediums, including painting, print-making and installation. For Tate Modern’s 2019 Hyundai commission, Walker has created a large-scale public sculpture in the form of a four-tiered fountain. Fons Americanus questions how we remember history in our public monuments. At the same time, the work presents a narrative on the origins of the African diaspora.
Fons Americanus is inspired by the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, London. The memorial was designed in 1901 and unveiled in 1911 to honour the achievements of Queen Victoria who was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837–1901), as well as the Empress of India. Rather than a celebration of the British Empire, Walker’s fountain inverts the usual function of a memorial and questions narratives of power. Walker explores the interconnected histories of Africa, America and Europe. She uses water as a key theme, referring to the transatlantic slave trade and the ambitions, fates and tragedies of people from these three continents. Bringing together fact, fantasy and fiction, Fons Americanus stands as a representation of this narrative in the form of an allegory or fable.
The full title of the work is painted on the wall of the Turbine Hall. Written in Walker’s own words, the text encourages us to confront a history often misremembered in the UK. She presents the artwork as a ‘gift … to the heart of an Empire that redirected the fates of the world’. Walker has signed the work ‘Kara Walker, NTY’, or ‘Not Titled Yet’, in a play on British honours awards such as ‘OBE’ (Order of the British Empire).
WHY A MONUMENT?
The Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace, London being unveiled for the first time in 1911
Walker’s choice to create Fons Americanus in the form of a public fountain is significant in the wake of recent student demonstrations to take down monuments that celebrate colonial histories in both the US and UK. Fons Americanus turns the celebration and honouring of monuments inside out. The monument asks uncomfortable questions by exploring a history of violence against Black people of Africa and its diaspora that is often unacknowledged.
As you enter the Turbine Hall, you first encounter a smaller monument of Shell Grotto. Taking the form of scalloped shells from art historical depictions of the Roman goddess Venus, Walker’s shell encases a weeping boy inside a well, almost completely submerged in water. His head floats just above the surface as if drowning or emerging from the depths, with pools of water running from his eyes.
Walker’s Shell Grotto connects to the ruins of a colonial fortress on Bunce Island in Sierra Leone. Bunce Island was one of many commercial forts where European slave traders and African merchants traded and captured men, women and children ready for them to be sold on the plantations of the New World or America.
Walker’s weeping boy and well question how these traumatic histories are now celebrated. The weeping boy bounces back from the depths of waters to interrogate what we choose to remember and what we forget. How can we see the monuments in our public spaces in a new light?
Protest to support black women’s organisation in Hackney at 5pm on Friday 10 July.
Sistah Space is threatened with closure by Hackney Council.
Violence against women has increased markedly during the pandemic.
This is already a vastly under resourced sector, so it is outrageous that the local government cannot at the least dip into its reserves to keep Sistah Space operating.
Please give your support to the black survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.
We've tried fundraising, but how do you think it feels having to beg for support when you see a pub & garden raise in a day what we can't raise in 2 months! Just knowing a pub & a garden is more valuable than black lives is hard to swallow. I'm so done nowhttps://t.co/Hq6d1ViAsnpic.twitter.com/4jsFdWs4yS
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