History Matters Journal - Presenting the History of African and Caribbean People in Britain
In 2014, the History Matters group was formed by concerned black historians, students and teachers to highlight the alarmingly low numbers of history students and teachers of African and Caribbean descent in Britain.[1] The following year in April 2015, History Matters held its first major conference on the issue of the attainment and progression of black students at both under and postgraduate level, low numbers of black teachers and the matter of truly representative British history at the Institute of Historical Research in London. In attendance were the Black Cultural Archives, staff and representatives from the University of Chichester including co-founder Professor Hakim Adi, the Royal Historical Association and the Royal Historical Society, alongside students and teachers alike. The initial findings of the group identified that During 2012/13 there were only 1340 Black undergraduates studying History, 1.8% of the total number of History graduates in the country, with the subject ranking as the third most unpopular subject among Black undergraduates. Further, In 2016 it was estimated that there were less than 10 Black PhD students studying History in the country with only three Black students being admitted to train as History teachers.
The aim for History Matters was clear - there was an evident need “to set up something for young people to encourage them to engage in history, for some kind of intervention in school and for some way to encourage more older people to get back into history, to do research.”[2]
As a result, the History Matters group has gone on to found its own journal in 2021 following the global response to the murder of Geroge Floyd at the hands of now former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020, and has had a successful second conference in October 2021, collating and presenting New Perspectives on the History of African and Caribbean People in Britain. This conference saw the coming together of academics, students and researchers, both in and outside of educational institutions to present and discuss the dynamic histories of the presence of Black people in Britain, ranging from topics on the resistance of Rastafari women, Race, Gender and Pan-Africanism in Britain from 1935-1945, The London Black Lesbian and Gay Centre, a regional Black history of Falmouth and Penryn from 1688-1850 and more.
After joining History Matters in late 2022, I’ve been able to become a part of an organisation that centres the learning of Black British history as an integral part of our overview of the history of everyday life in Britain. Our most recent Winter/Spring Edition of the History Matters journal, our seventh in total since beginning the journal in 2021, has been met with such positive feedback and has provided us and others not only with a platform to share our own research, but a repository of free and accessible Black British history. For this edition, I completed a book review of Black Victorians: hidden in History by Keshia N. Abraham and John Woolf, alongside articles on The Committee for Ethiopian And Eritrean Relief and an in-depth study of Samual Coleridge-Taylor as part of a series of articles on The National Archives: Records in Focus.
History Matters is always welcome to new members and contributions to our journal series and conferences. We are particularly keen to hear from those of African and Caribbean heritage who are researching this history in universities, schools and elsewhere, or interested to hear from anyone who is working in our field. We are also interested in interviews, photos and historic documents. If you have other ideas about what might be included, please let us know, we are always seeking to involve others. You can contact us at: histmatters@gmail.com
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