The central criminal court in London, the Old Bailey has published court records from 1674-1913 online. The database includes records on the lives of Africans and their descendent’s in London.

The defence of highwayman Joseph Guy in 1767 was that ‘There are a thousand black men in London besides me’. Unsurprisingly, most appear in criminal contexts. Poor Thomas Robinson (’a Negro Black Boy ‘), for example, was sentenced to death for house-breaking and stealing ‘divers Goods’ in 1724. But others were respectable citizens. John Bardoe was bought as a slave in Lagos by a Genoese sea-captain and, when their ship docked in London in 1859, Bardoe apparently freed himself with the aid of a fellow countryman and began working for another Italian. Bardoe then fell ill and, in a feverish state, assumed he was being recaptured. He first barricaded himself into his room, then made a break for it and stabbed a policeman in a rooftop chase. An interesting story in itself - but the translator at the trial was ‘Miss. M. B. Servano, a native of Yorubah, and educated in England’. There are lots of interesting analytical details there: social networks among Africans in London, the continuation of slavery at sea, perceptions of freedom, and the education of African women. Bardoe was found to have acted in self-defence and judged not guilty.

The publication of the archives on line is probably one of the most exciting additions to the history of Black people in Britain. I did my own search on “Calabar” which revealed this case for what appears to be the murder at sea of a Black servant by a ships Captain.

Thanks to Emeka

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Historical Archives
Black Britain + History
Old Baily Court

Rethabile remembers Malcolm X on Poefrika. It’s an easy day for me to remember as it’s also my son’s birthday. He spent the day looking at some of his maternal ancestors over at the British Museum in London meanwhile here is Rethabile’s post

For Malcolm X

All you violated ones with gentle hearts;
You violent dreamers whose cries shout heartbreak;
Whose voices echo clamors of our cool capers,
And whose black faces have hollowed pits for eyes.
All you gambling sons and hooked children and bowery bums
Hating white devils and black bourgeoisie,
Thumbing your noses at your burning red suns,
Gather round this coffin and mourn your dying swan.

Snow-white moslem head-dress around a dead black face!
Beautiful were your sand-papering words against our skins!
Our blood and water pour from your flowing wounds.
You have cut open our breasts and dug scalpels in our brain
When and Where will another come to take your holy place?
Old man mumbling in his dotage, or crying child, unborn?
© Margaret Abigail Walker

Malcolm X was born on 19 May 1925. Happy birthday to him.

Links: Malcolm X Grassroots Movement

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Malcolm X

Zimbabwe: Black America must not be silent
Bill Fletcher (2008-04-17)

Much of Black America stopped discussing Zimbabwe after its liberation in 1980; at least, we stopped discussing it for a while. After years of regular coverage of the liberation war, details regarding Zimbabwe became harder to obtain as attention shifted to struggles in Mozambique, Namibia, Angola and South Africa. Not to be misunderstood, it was not that facts were being withheld for us here in Black America, so much as we paid less attention to developments, and did not dig for information.

[…]

So many of us chose to ignore developments, however. We ignored purges that had taken place within ZANU prior to Liberation. We ignored the violent crushing of a rebellion in the early years of the Mugabe administration. We ignored President Mugabe’s adoption of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank formula of “structural adjustment”, despite its economic theory running contrary to a pro-people economic transformation. And, we ignored the fact that the land was not being redistributed. We ignored this and other unsettling matters while the focus of much of Black America was on events unfolding in other parts of Southern Africa.

Links: Shocking photos of violence from Zimbabwe - FREE Zim

South West Radio Africa

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Zimbabwe
African-Americans
Solidarity
Mugabe

The Martiniquan poet, novelist, playwright and activist, Aime Cesaire died today aged 94. I feel sad that the last of our literary and ideological [negritude] warriors is now gone.

Sad that we people of African descent remain at odds with each other. Where the people who stayed behind have forgotten those who were stolen from their villages and towns. We stand before each other staring at myths and lies constructed not by us, but by those who wish to divide us. But still we believe not what we see but what we are told.

My friend Marian who has also written a tribute in English and French sent me this from a friend of a Martiniquan friend of hers in DC.

Dear Colleagues:

The following is to announce the passing of Aime Cesaire. A poet, playwright, writer, Mayor of Fort-de-France, Congressman, pillar of the Negritude movement, thinker of the African independence movements, Cesaire leaves us with a long legacy of struggle for the dignity of people of African descent around the world, for human rights. As heads of state and dignitaries especially from Africa and the Caribbean are making their way to Martinique to attend his funeral on Sunday, we cannot help but think of the number of people he has influenced world wide through his writings. Cesaire is taught in the majority of the French language departments in universities across the United States and around the world. Among his works “Discourse on Colonialism”, “A Season in the Congo”, “The tragedy of King Christopher” or “Return to My Native Land” have resonated in the 1960s and beyond and have been seminal to liberation struggles around the globe.

Today I also mourn the personal friend and mentor that I visited on every trip to Martinique. I will miss his guidance, strength of character and dignity shrouded in simplicity.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Your colleague, Marilyn Sephocle

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Aime Cesaire
Martinique

A group of us including Marian of Marian’s Blog have re-named the March 17th Irish holiday “Billie Holi-DAY” to celebrate the forgotten Black people with Irish ancestry wherever they may be.

Most people do not know but jazz vocalist Billie Holiday, writer Alex Haley, Muhammed Ali and many other Black people in the Diaspora have Irish ancestry. As well as immigrants to the USA, a large number of Irish settled in the Caribbean, some as indentured servants used by the British to settle islands such as Montserrat which had the largest Irish population. Others went as merchants, plantation owners and missionaries to Guadeloupe, Martinique and Haiti. The islands were also used by the British as penal colonies similar to Australia.

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Billie Holiday
St Patrick’s Day
Irish