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Celebrating Sisterhood for Black History Month 2023

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October is Black History Month, which recognises and celebrates the invaluable contributions of black people to British society. This year’s theme is ‘Saluting our Sisters’, which pays homage to black women. Read the remarkable and inspiring story of Dr Jan Etienne, Honorary Research Fellow (Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) who shares some of her earlier experiences through to her current work in black feminist research.

Dr Jan Etienne

Who is Dr Jan Etienne?

Jan is a distinguished Academic and Honorary Research Fellow, in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Birkbeck. She is the author of several academic publications, including the following books: Learning in Womanist ways: Narratives of first generation, African Caribbean women (2016) (UCL Press); Communities of Activism: Black women, higher education, and the politics of representation (2020) (UCL Press); Doing contemporary womanist research (2023) (LPP) and Decolonising the higher education academy; decolonial feminist approaches (forthcoming).

She is a graduate of the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, and Chair of Birkbeck’s (Womanism, Activism, Higher Education Research Network  where she leads a 22-member strong international team of decolonial feminist activists working together with community activists to promote black women’s activism in higher education research. This research network is supported and funded by the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research.

Jan says, “Collaboration with black women on anti-racist work in education is everything, together we are stronger and collaboratively we can make things happen.  This is what celebrating sisterhood feels like to me.

The people who have inspired me along the way include fellow pupils, community activists, teachers, and lecturers who collaborate with me, as well as students from whom I learn a great deal.

I am committed to securing our spaces in higher education to enable us to breathe and heal, in a climate where there is often mistrust and rage.  However, it is essential that we collaborate with our fellow anti-racist educators, to learn, act and change.”

Outside of Birkbeck, Jan is Editor for the Gender Studies Collection at Lived Places Publishing,  an international education publishing house, based in New York.

Jan was awarded the 2022 Womanist Ethnography prize by the Centre for Womanist Ethnography research from Vanderbilt University at the 5th Annual Womanist Ethnography Conference (Nashville, Tennessee, USA) for her work in promoting and developing black feminist ethnographic research in higher education.

She says: “I believe in promoting the voice of black women activist educators, in collaborative participative research for social justice.  For me it is the most powerful educational development in the fight to end systemic and structural racism.   Like black women on the frontline of community activist work, ‘we are collaborators, we are leaders, we are negotiators, and we are finding ways to overcome!’   Spaces to share our lived, first-hand experiences are invaluable to help deliver effective anti-racist programmes in higher education.”

Early life in activism

Dr Jan Etienne

Jan shares, “My earliest awareness of activism was as a working-class pupil attending Rokesley school in Hornsey, North London.  At first, I was victimised, and alone – until the journey home, where a seemingly invisible group emerged, powerful.  Here, other girls like me came alive as we walked, talked, and shared our pain.  In such times, we listened to each other’s voices, and developed ideas in conversations with each other – in solidarity and in sisterhood.

I listened carefully to the words of those who inspired me in this small group.  Their commitment to doing something ‘for all of us’ remained with me and set me on my own path to liberate my ways of thinking and doing.  Those hurried conversations were taking place ‘alone’ but ‘together’ as we strategized on how we might best cope with what we knew as racism and sexism.  Being black, female, and on our way home to attend to family chores, we became bolder, stronger, braver, and prepared to face the world.

“Clinging to our sisters for survival was everything.  Today it is still everything.”

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Upcoming event

Jan will host this year’s Womanism, Activism, Higher Education Research Network conference on Tuesday 31 October, 1.00 – 4.30pm. The theme under discussion is: ‘Sharing good practice in doing Black feminist research for community’.

Read more details and book tickets for the online conference, here.

Further information

View Birkbeck’s Equality and Diversity initiatives.

Read the oration for Dr Jan Etienne.

Find out more about Birkbeck’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Learn more about Birkbeck’s history and its diverse communities.

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Black History Month and beyond: in conversation with Dr William Ackah

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Senior Lecturer in Black and Community Geographies in the Department of Geography, Dr William Ackah’s academic specialism is around issues of religion and politics across the African diaspora. Here, we find out more about his work.  

Where did your interest in Black diaspora and community development start?
My family came from Ghana to Britain in the 1960’s, and I was born in Walthamstow, East London – so my childhood took place in fairly multicultural setting. I went to Liverpool for university, and after that, went to live in Haiti for a year, to teach English. It was what I experienced there that had a profound impact on the shaping of my political and academic interests.  

Haiti was the first independent Black Republic in the Western Hemisphere, the place where African descendents had thrown off the shackles of white supremacy. It was a place of inspiration but also a place of pain and suffering. I witnessed oppression and poverty based on years of corrupt governance, international neglect and the crazed absurdity that Haiti was paying France reparations.  Seeing what was happening to my fellow African brothers and sisters made me recognise that when I came back to the UK I would want to undertake work to assist in restoring the legacies and improving the lived experiences of people of the African diaspora.  

How did you begin to do that?  
Back in the UK, I initially pursued a more academic vocation, studying for a Master’s in Pan-Africanism, which was all about linking the experiences of Black communities across the globe and looking at their relationships, their common points and differences. And that was the kind of work I then pursued in some shape or another, whilst living in the North West of England for several years.  

I worked in a Black Community College, teaching students largely from Black communities in Liverpool, who had been failed by the school system and lacked confidence in their academic ability. It was really rewarding work. I taught them Black history and Black studies and saw how it helped build their self-esteem and confidence. I saw how in turn, that enabled many of them to get into Higher Education spaces – something that up until that point, many of them had felt wasn’t accessible to them. 

After several years doing this, I moved into higher education, teaching Race Equality Studies at what’s now known as Edge Hill University. All the while, I was doing my PhD doctoral work in Government. Once that was complete, I came to Birkbeck, teaching about Community Development. It was similar work to what I’d always done: all about uplifting marginalised communities, encouraging thought about people whose stories and experiences get ignored and how they can be empowered to improve their own lives, to challenge unfair systems, and fight for equality and justice. That’s at the heart of what I do for Birkbeck, as the programme director for Community Development and Public Policy.  

What else has influenced your work?  
While in the USA in 2009, on a sabbatical, I interacted with some African American Scholars, including Drew Smith, a Professor of Urban Politics, looking at the impact of religion and politics on Black communities. We became good friends and found our interests overlapped and fed each other in very interesting ways. So, we formed, along with Rothney Tshaka from South Africa, the Transatlantic Roundtable on Religion and Race. This initiative brings together scholars of African descent with faith-based leaders, to think about how spiritual and religious connections can enable people to make a difference to improve the lives of people of African descent.  

Then in 2016/17, I was a Fulbright Research Scholar, again in the US. I was looking at the city of Pittsburgh, urban revistalisation, and the impact that gentrification has on African American congregations and communities there. I’m currently writing that research up, then working on a broader book project that explores the idea of Black space. I make the argument that Black space matters, and that African descended people need our own geographical, cultural and spiritual spaces to resist patterns of erasure, of racism, of gentrification; patterns that have denied us space and in doing so, denied us the opportunity to be who we want to be. 

What are you doing to help create Black space? 
A lot of my work for both Birkbeck and the Transatlantic Roundtable on Religion and Race (TRRR) involves community building. With the TRRR, we hold international conferences, two of which have been hosted by Birkbeck, exploring African diaspora and faith. We also produce academic texts on various themes such as culture and spirituality across Africa and the African diaspora, Black churches and contesting multiculturalism, and most recently racialised healthcare in the context of Covid-19. 

Community building is an important aspect of my academic and personal practice. During Covid, working with a group of Black Christians, we started an online space called ‘BlakPak’. It’s a two-pronged initiative. First, we interview prominent people in the Black community in Britain who have something to share with the wider community. It’s called BlakPak as a play on the word, backpack: what’s in your BlakPak? What’s your historical experience and understanding of life? What is it that you’ve drawn on and learnt that you can share with the wider community? We’ve had speakers like Margaret Busby, one of the first Black publishers in Britain, and Gus John, a leading Black academic and activist.  

The second prong is an international dimension that we call ‘Critical Conversations’, where we bring together people from Britain with people from the US, the Caribbean and from the continent to have conversations around issues that we think are impacting us as a community globally. These might be about health, criminal justice systems, the state of Black womanhood and so on. The whole thing is targeted at ordinary people, the idea is to create a repository of Black wisdom, in the hope it can contribute to uplifting communities.   

For me, it’s a win if people access this information, then go away and, in their sphere, think ‘let me go and make a difference’. Raising awareness and disseminating wisdom and conversations from community elders and experts is so important, because it can result in people taking tangible action.  

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Why a Black History Month?

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October marks Black History Month in the UK, a celebration of the history and achievements of people of African descent. In this blog, Rebekah Bonaparte discusses why Black History Month is still as important as ever. 

Claudia Jones

Claudia Jones is credited with creating the UK’s first black newspaper, the ‘West Indian Gazette’ in 1958, she has also been described as the ‘Mother of Notting Hill Carnival’ for her part in its founding.

Among the many challenges 2020 has brought, the conversation around racism and inequalities came to the forefront for many with the resurgence and prevalence of the Black Matters Movement following the murder of George Floyd in the US. The effects of this were felt here in the UK, and the subsequent conversations around inequality and belonging in Britain serves as a strong reminder why Black History Month is still as important as ever.

Black History Month was first established in the UK in October 1987 in London. It was organised by Ghanaian analyst Akyaaba Addai-Sebbo who served as a coordinator of special projects for the Greater London Council. The month was adapted from the United States Black History Month that began in the 1920s, and was established in response to heightened racial tensions in the UK.

Prior to it being established, there had been riots in the 1980s, and throughout the 20th century, which left the burgeoning Black British population relegated to outsiders, and marginalised, separate from the British cultural identity which was perceived as representing the interests of only the English.

The creation of Black History Month served as a way to celebrate the black people living in Britain, at a time when the denial of black people’s contribution to history was limited to the horrors of slavery.

In his book, Black and British: A Forgotten History, British Historian, David Olosugo notes that the “uncovering of black British history was so important because the present was so contested.” So, to highlight black people’s place and belonging in Britain, Black History Month serves as a welcome reminder that black people come from a long tradition of people who have enriched this country and beyond with their culture.

There is a rich and relatively unknown history of Black people within the UK that does not feature on the national curriculum, a glaring oversight considering the range of backgrounds that are seen in British schools, around the city and while diversity has become a buzz word in business and beyond, it is important to acknowledge and celebrate this history at all levels of society. It’s through history that we form our collective identity and therefore in studying blackness in the British context we can, in one-way, foster inclusion and pride.

To be clear, black history should feature in all months of the year, but setting aside a month when black people and their contributions can be marked and celebrated and brought to everyone’s attention should not be taken for granted. Black people have done so much in this country and continue to influence and shape culture, a fact that should never be forgotten.

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A moving celebration of Black History Month

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Carmen Fracchia, Professor of Hispanic Art History, Cultures & Languages, School of Arts, reflects on her recent book tour and the emotive nature of the response to her book in considering the experience of Black people in Spain.

Flemish painter, Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch. Book of Hours of Charles V, do l. 82r. Brussels or Malines, c. 1519, Österreichische, Nationalbibliothek

On 2 October, I was invited to present my new book ‘Black but Human: Slavery and Visual Art in Hapsburg Spain, 1480-1700’ (Oxford: OUP, 2019) at the University of Lincoln (UK) to celebrate Black History Month, together with two poets, one visual artist, and an art historian. I found this event, UT PICTURA POESIS: An Evening of Poetry, Art and Art History, deeply emotional.

Organised by Dr Laura Fernández-González (School of History and Heritage), the title emerged from her belief in the power of images, following the steps of Horace’s maxime, ‘as is painting, so is poetry.’ Her aim, however, was to show new work produced as a case study on how to construct a ‘new anti-racist Art and Architectural History’. Her brief was followed by the presentation of the three artists by the art historian Michael Ohajuru, a TV personality and director of The John Blanke Project.

In my view, the most unexpected feature of the evening, was the poem ‘Negro pero humano’ (‘Black but Human’) by the literary activist, editor, publisher, and, award-winning poet, Kadija Sesay MBE. It was one of her two extremely powerful poems, written specifically for this event as a response to my book, to its title, and to two images of her choice, The Miracle of the Black Leg and The Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch.

The first part of the title of my book, ‘Black but Human’, was an Afro-Hispanic proverb and the prism from which I tried to foreground the forgotten presence of Africans and their descendants in the visual form in early modern Spain. This proverb also allowed me to explore the emergence of the ‘enslaved subject’ and the ‘emancipated subject’ in Spanish portraiture.

This saying, that was circulated in the Afro-Spanish oral tradition and appropriated by well-known Hispanic poets, such as Luis de Góngora in Spain and Juana Inés de la Cruz in Mexico, was also written by enslaved and liberated Africans, as the findings of anonymous black carols, in 2004, testify.

‘Black but Human’ encodes the paradoxical nature of what it meant to be a ‘black’ person in ‘white’ Spain, between 1480-1700. To be ‘black’, as I have recently written in my blog, ‘How long do we need to wait to acknowledge that black people are no longer our slaves?, ‘meant to be a chattel, a piece of property, to be hired, bought and sold as a precious commodity at auctions; to become objects of material exchange: traded to save the donor’s soul, gifts, dowry, and, heritage; money to pay debts, to settle accounts in lieu of mortgages, and rents.

To be a black person meant to be owned by a slave master and to suffer punishment at any sign of rebellion against this complete dehumanization in a society where the word ‘black’ and the physical appearance of blackness were signifiers of the specific social condition of slavery. Besides, to be a black person also meant to become a strategic resource for the colonization of the New World.’ Africans were also considered ‘children of God’ as they had a soul that was whitened by the transformative powers of baptism. Christianity made them equal to Spaniards, but only in the spiritual realm.

Kadija’s beautiful poems encapsulated the ideological, painful, and contradictory position of Africans in the Spanish empire that I explored in my book, perfectly. Her poems set up the emotional barometer of the Lincoln event that was strengthened by the topical work made by the visual artist Victoria Burgher. In her presentation, she showed ten temporary works made with ‘colonial commodities’, like sugar and cotton to ‘re-examine white-washed narratives of empire’ and as a critique to the British Transatlantic Slavery in the Caribbean and in the UK. This strong visual presentation was complemented by the speed and cascade of words by international media activist and poet-educator Mark Thompson’s brilliant performance of his personal and historical poems, that brought the energy and anger of the young.

The last half of the evening was followed by the conversation between Michael and I about my book. We discussed the historical amnesia of the African presence in today’s Spain; the title of my book; the visual representation of the Miracle of the Black Leg, as the metaphor of the violence of slavery and the roots of contemporary racism in the Hispanic world; the portraits of the enslaved Juan de Pareja (c.1606, Antequera, Málaga–c.1670, Madrid) by his owner, the court painter Diego Velázquez; Pareja’s self-portrait, as a freedman, in his painting The Calling of Saint Matthew, and, the urgent need to recover the Afro-Hispanic contribution to the Hispanic culture.

This event was attended by approximately 80 people and generated so many questions from the numerous national and international attendees (students, academics, museums curators, filmmakers, artists, writers, among many others) that time was not enough to address all of them.

Read Kadija Sesay’s poem, Negro pero Humano

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