London is the Place for Me

London is the Place for Me
Author: Kennetta Hammond Perry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2016-01-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190493437

Black people in the British Empire have long challenged the notion that "there ain't no black in the Union Jack." For the post-World War II wave of Afro-Caribbean migrants, many of whom had long been subjects of the Empire, claims to a British identity and imperial citizenship were considered to be theirs by birthright. However, while Britain was internationally touted as a paragon of fair play and equal justice, they arrived in a nation that was frequently hostile and unwilling to incorporate Black people into its concept of what it meant to be British. Black Britons therefore confronted the racial politics of British citizenship and became active political agents in challenging anti-Black racism. In a society with a highly racially circumscribed sense of identity-and the laws, customs, and institutions to back it up-Black Britons had to organize and fight to assert their right to belong. In London Is The Place for Me, Kennetta Hammond Perry explores how Afro-Caribbean migrants navigated the politics of race and citizenship in Britain and reconfigured the boundaries of what it meant to be both Black and British at a critical juncture in the history of Empire and twentieth century transnational race politics. She situates their experience within a broader context of Black imperial and diasporic political participation, and examines the pushback-both legal and physical-that the migrants' presence provoked. Bringing together a variety of sources including calypso music, photographs, migrant narratives, and records of grassroots Black political organizations, London Is the Place for Me positions Black Britons as part of wider public debates both at home and abroad about citizenship, the meaning of Britishness and the politics of race in the second half of the twentieth century. The United Kingdom's postwar discriminatory curbs on immigration and explosion of racial violence forced White Britons as well as Black to question their perception of Britain as a racially progressive society and, therefore, to question the very foundation of their own identities. Perry's examination expands our understanding of race and the Black experience in Europe and uncovers the critical role that Black people played in the formation of contemporary British society.

Mongrel Nation

Mongrel Nation
Author: Ashley Dawson
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018-05-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0472900978

Mongrel Nation surveys the history of the United Kingdom’s African, Asian, and Caribbean populations from 1948 to the present, working at the juncture of cultural studies, literary criticism, and postcolonial theory. Ashley Dawson argues that during the past fifty years Asian and black intellectuals from Sam Selvon to Zadie Smith have continually challenged the United Kingdom’s exclusionary definitions of citizenship, using innovative forms of cultural expression to reconfigure definitions of belonging in the postcolonial age. By examining popular culture and exploring topics such as the nexus of race and gender, the growth of transnational politics, and the clash between first- and second-generation immigrants, Dawson broadens and enlivens the field of postcolonial studies. Mongrel Nation gives readers a broad landscape from which to view the shifting currents of politics, literature, and culture in postcolonial Britain. At a time when the contradictions of expansionist braggadocio again dominate the world stage, Mongrel Nation usefully illuminates the legacy of imperialism and suggests that creative voices of resistance can never be silenced.Dawson “Elegant, eloquent, and full of imaginative insight, Mongrel Nation is a refreshing, engaged, and informative addition to post-colonial and diasporic literary scholarship.” —Hazel V. Carby, Yale University “Eloquent and strong, insightful and historically precise, lively and engaging, Mongrel Nation is an expansive history of twentieth-century internationalist encounters that provides a broader landscape from which to understand currents, shifts, and historical junctures that shaped the international postcolonial imagination.” —May Joseph, Pratt Institute Ashley Dawson is Associate Professor of English at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center and the College of Staten Island. He is coeditor of the forthcoming Exceptional State: Contemporary U.S. Culture and the New Imperialism.

London is the Place for Me

London is the Place for Me
Author: Kennetta Hammond Perry
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190240202

In London Is The Place for Me, Kennetta Hammond Perry explores how Afro-Caribbean migrants navigated the politics of race and citizenship in Britain and reconfigured the boundaries of what it meant to be both Black and British at a critical juncture in the history of Empire and twentieth century transnational race politics.

Writing Black Britain 1948-1998

Writing Black Britain 1948-1998
Author: James Procter
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2000-09-02
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780719053825

"Brings together a diverse range of black British literatures, essays and documents from across the post-war period ... includes South Asian, African and Caribbean cultural production by both leading and lesser-known artists, critics and commentators ... [accommodates] popular and 'high' cultural materials from across the disciplines of literature, film, photography, history, sociology, politics, Marxism, feminism, cultural and communications studies"--Publisher

Roots & Culture

Roots & Culture
Author: Eddie Chambers
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2016-12-18
Genre: Art
ISBN: 178673074X

How did a distinct and powerful Black British identity emerge? In the 1950s, when many Caribbean migrants came to Britain, there was no such recognised entity as "Black Britain." Yet by the 1980s, the cultural landscape had radically changed, and a remarkable array of creative practices such as theatre, poetry, literature, music and the visual arts gave voice to striking new articulations of Black-British identity. This new book chronicles the extraordinary blend of social, political and cultural influences from the mid-1950s to late 1970s that gave rise to new heights of Black-British artistic expression in the 1980s. Eddie Chambers relates how and why during these decades "West Indians" became "Afro-Caribbeans," and how in turn "Afro-Caribbeans" became "Black-British" - and the centrality of the arts to this important narrative. The British Empire, migration, Rastafari, the Anti-Apartheid struggle, reggae music, dub poetry, the ascendance of the West Indies cricket team and the coming of Margaret Thatcher - all of these factors, and others, have had a part to play in the compelling story of how the African Diaspora transformed itself to give rise to Black Britain.

Black Handsworth

Black Handsworth
Author: Kieran Connell
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2019-02-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520971957

In 1980s Britain, while the country failed to reckon with the legacies of its empire, a black, transnational sensibility was emerging in its urban areas. In Handsworth, an inner-city neighborhood of Birmingham, black residents looked across the Atlantic toward African and Afro-Caribbean social and political cultures and drew upon them while navigating the inequalities of their locale. For those of the Windrush generation and their British-born children, this diasporic inheritance became a core influence on cultural and political life. Through rich case studies, including photographic representations of the neighborhood, Black Handsworth takes readers inside pubs, churches, political organizations, domestic spaces, and social clubs to shed light on the experiences and everyday lives of black residents during this time. The result is a compelling and sophisticated study of black globality in the making of post-colonial Britain.

The Other Special Relationship

The Other Special Relationship
Author: R. Kelley
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2016-02-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137392703

The close diplomatic, economic, and military ties that comprising the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain have received plenty of attention from historians over the years. Less frequently noted are the countries' shared experiences of empire, white supremacy, racial inequality, and neoliberalism - and the attendant struggles for civil rights and political reform that have marked their recent history. This state-of-the-field collection traces the contours of this other "special relationship," exploring its implications for our understanding of the development of an internationally interconnected civil rights movement. Here, scholars from a range of research fields contribute essays on a wide variety of themes, from solidarity protests to calypso culture to white supremacy.

Remediating Transcultural Memory

Remediating Transcultural Memory
Author: Dagmar Brunow
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2015-09-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3110434520

The impact of digital global media, geopolitical changes and migration demands new theorizations within memory studies. Despite the growing field of media memory studies, the impact from film and media studies has been scarce within memory studies. This unique study offers new theorizations of three crucial concepts for media memory studies: remediation, transculturality and the archive. This book takes a closer look at the media specificity of archival footage and how it is adapted, translated and appropriated. In its original approach this work reflects upon the role of documentary film images for the construction of memory. By merging film and media studies with memory studies the work offers multiple theoretical and methodological approaches for everyone interested in the heritage of audiovisual media: film and media scholars, memory scholars, historians, art historians, social scientists, librarians or archivists, curators and festival programmers alike.

Claudia Jones

Claudia Jones
Author: Denise Lynn
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2023-11-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1509549323

Activist, journalist, and visionary Claudia Jones was one of the most important advocates of emancipation in the twentieth century. Arguing for a socialist future and the total emancipation of working people, Jones’s legacy made an enduring mark on both sides of the Atlantic. This ground-breaking biography traces Jones’s remarkable life and work, beginning with her immigration to the United States and culminating in her advocacy for the emancipation of the most oppressed. Denise Lynn reveals how Jones’s radicalism was forged through confronting American racism, and how her disillusionment led to a life committed to socialist liberation. But this activism came at a cost: Jones would be expelled from the US for being a communist. Deported to England, she took up the mantle of anti-colonial liberation movements. Despite the innumerable obstacles in her way, Jones never wavered in her commitments. In her tireless resistance to capitalism, racism, and sexism, she envisioned an equitable future devoted to peace and humanity – a vision that we all must continue to fight for today.

Calypso and Other Music of Trinidad, 1912-1962

Calypso and Other Music of Trinidad, 1912-1962
Author:
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2015-05-14
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0786478519

Calypso, with its diverse cultural heritage, was the most significant Caribbean musical form from World War I to Trinidad and Tobago Independence in 1962. Though wildly popular in mid-1950s America, Calypso--along with other music from "the island of the hummingbird"--has been largely neglected or forgotten. This first-ever discography of the first 50 years of Trinidadian music includes all the major artists, as well as many obscure performers. Chronological entries for 78 rpm recordings give bibliographical references, periodicals, websites and the recording locations. Rare field recordings are cataloged for the first time, including East Indian and Muslim community performances and Shango and Voodoo rites. Appendices give 10-inch LP (78 rpm), 12-inch LP (33 1/3 rpm), extended play (ep) and 7-inch single (45) listings. Non-commercial field recordings, radio broadcasts and initially unissued sessions also are listed. The influence of Trinidadian music on film, and the "Calypso craze" are discussed. Audio sources are provided. Indexes list individual artists and groups, recording titles and labels.