We are inviting teachers to bring their classes to our study day on 6 October 2017. The aim of this event is to gather secondary school and college students from across the region and give them a taster session on Black history. Highlights include a short talk on Black British history and people of African descent in Hull and East Yorkshire, an oral history interview with Bax from the local band Bud Sugar and a trip to see our fantastic exhibition.

For more information please see the event flyers below. Click on each flyer to download.

To find out more about the project, exhibition or associated events please go to our EVENTS PAGE.

**Please confirm your attendance by email to: [email protected] ** 

The Africans project team would like to remind everyone involved in education that we have an amazing Schools page on our website! See the link above. Please feel free to browse the content and use some of our fantastic resources to get children and young adults involved in uncovering the region's Black History.

As a starter, Martin Spafford has contributed a wealth of information on Africans in Britain from the Roman era to the Twentieth Century. Although this work is aimed at GCSE students it has the potential to be adapted for children and young people of any age. Also Hull City Council’s School Library Services are able to support schools with resources please click here for a link to their website. In addition, we would be happy to supply a workshop for teachers to help them engage with Black history in this region.

If you are a teacher, mentor or student there are plenty of ways to engage with our project so please do get involved. Press the contact us button below if you request any further information.

Everything we have is free to use but please remember to fully acknowledge our website, you can find out how by clicking HERE.

The end of 2016 marks a fantastic 12 months for the Africans in Hull and East Yorkshire Project and gives us an opportunity to share a summary of our journey so far.

The concept for this project began in November 2015 because it was felt that the region would benefit from a deeper insight into an aspect of British history that had a local focus. It was also realised that historical narratives can often be selective in what is reported and that accounts could be better served by providing a wider lens on events to include a fuller picture. Certainly for this region the Wilberforce connection has always been an important one, hence the gaze was placed on the African story.

Our First Event: Feb 2016
The idea began to flourish and by February it was felt that the time was right to moot the proposal to a wider audience and to gauge interest. This resulted in a highly successful first event held at WISE which was attended by nearly thirty people. We had guest speakers Martin Spafford (a GCSE History curriculum writer) outlining the history of British Black presence from the Roman times to the present day; Audrey Dewjee examining how to research local
history http://www.africansinyorkshireproject.com/hidden-gems.html; Dr Nick Evans and Professor John Oldfield (Wilberforce Institute) giving practical guides on local research and Martin Taylor (Hull History Centre) providing an insight into resources for research. These talks were very well received.

HLF Funding and the Project Expands!
We then forged ahead with an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund which was met with success in May when we were granted £39,100 for the African Stories in Hull and East Yorkshire project.
During the summer months the project rapidly expanded. A range of people joined our team as volunteer researchers, transcribers and Contemporary Voices. They enabled us to add more exciting content to our website. To date we have uncovered the previous silenced narratives of people of African descent in East Yorkshire with over 16 stories and 20 Contemporary Voices. There are also a further 28 stories which are waiting to be written and funding available for another 10 Contemporary Voices which will certainly keep us busy in 2017.

Our Second Event: Nov 2016
As the project gathered further momentum, interest from the community and general public across the country increased. Members of the community contacted us about their family history and academics came forward with stories which we have been able to refocus and build upon.
In November we hosted our second event at the WISE. The project team gave presentations alongside guest speakers, Audrey Dewjee, Rona Dickinson and Nicholas Evans. Over 40 people attended the event and we received overwhelmingly positive comments about the work we are doing to bring African stories in the region to life. Read a report of the event HERE.

Our Amazing Contributors!
Throughout this year we have had the support and contributions from many, many people all of whom have been generous with their time, advice and funds http://www.africansinyorkshireproject.com/contributors.html . We continue to welcome this kind of support from anybody whatever their expertise, who want to make their mark on this project. We have had the attention of the media: ITV Calendar, Hull Daily Mail (Calvin Innes), Radio Humberside (Phil White, David Reeves, James Piekos, Andy Comfort and David Burns) and BBC Look North. This has all helped in getting the message out to the community: for everyone to have the opportunity to join in and make this an educational resource that allows the discovery of a rich strand of regional social history. This will be an important legacy for future generations.

Next Year? Hull City of Culture 2017: Get Involved with the Africans Project!
As Hull is the City of Culture for 2017, in the next twelve months we will continue to expand the project and bring the stories of people with African heritage in East Yorkshire to life. We will demonstrate that the social and cultural fabric of the region has been influenced by a diverse range of people who visited, worked or lived in Hull and East Yorkshire, many of whom were and are of African descent. To showcase our findings, we will be holding a four week exhibition at the Hull History Centre opening on 25 September 2017.

Thank you for your fantastic support this year! If you want to get involved with our exciting project in 2017 do not hesitate to contact us.

**Take a further look at the content of the African Stories In Hull & East Yorkshire by going to our new SEARCH page HERE!**

The African Stories in Hull and East Yorkshire event last Friday was attended by over sixty people at Hull University’s Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE). Those attending said that they found the day informative and surprising with a varied range of interesting stories.

The speakers were:
Dr Lauren Darwin, our project researcher who gave an overview of the project to date exploring the history of Black men and women in Hull and East Yorkshire between 1750 and 2007. She then went on to pick out particular points in history and commented on the themes that we have developed. She also explained how the project might expand in the future. 
Rona Dickinson an archivist and President of the Marshland Local History Group who became aware of their "Black Vicar" Rev Edward Cragg Haynes some years ago. Her talk covered his family, the role of Freedmen in Barbados and his mark on the village of Swinefleet.
Dr Carolyn Conroy, our Web Manager who spoke about the first visits by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers of Nashville Tennessee to Hull in the 1870s.  She gave a brief background history of the troupe and looked at the individual singers' stories.
Dr Nick Evans, an experienced lecturer at WISE who specialises in Migration, explored the everyday life of Black settlers in interwar Hull. He focussed on areas such as their housing, living conditions, social life and integration of what remained a small visibly ethnic community once it moved beyond the Sailor Town of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
Audrey Dewjee, a specialist in Black History gave a brief overview of the events of the Hull Riots of 1920 and then looked at how the riots had an effect on inter-racial family life.

The feedback from the event was overwhelmingly positive and we were delighted by the enthusiastic praises. However, we are always looking for ways of improving the project and so welcome suggestions. The following are ideas raised in the comments:

Involve schools:- we wrote directly to many secondary schools to inform them of this event but disappointingly, no schools attended. We actively look to involve young people and continue to make efforts to do so. We invite any level school to contact us as we would be happy to visit and share what we are finding. We welcome contributions of long or short story. Choose a person on the website or someone new…..what about Clive Sullivan, Curtis Woodhouse, JJ Okocha etc? The information shared on the project website can be used in curriculum areas such as History, English, Geography, Sociology, Citizenship, Media Studies, Visual Arts etc.

The use of terminology such as ‘coloured’ or ‘Black’ can be confusing:- A glossary and dates of use was suggested; we will look to help clarify this point and think about how we can present this information on the website.

More people should know about this project:- We continue to inform widely and have taken up media opportunities in TV, Radio and Newspapers. Please download our poster and help us spread the word. Let us know where and we’ll try and get it there! This is a community project for everyone of all backgrounds to join in!

Thank you to all who came to our African Stories event and to those who continue to support the project.

The Project Team

Today we publish our third oral history interview for the Contemporary Voices part of our Africans in Yorks project. Joe Bvumburai's heritage lies in Zimbabwe, but he was born in Zambia when racial segregation was prevalent. At the age of twenty-two he came to Hull to study architecture at the Hull School of Architecture under a Swedish scholarship. Joe talks about his first experience of snow, rugby and the sights and sounds of Hull in 1982. He currently works as an architect in Hull inspiring others through his innovative buildings.

Listen to his oral history recording HERE.

The project is mainly funded by Untold Hull. Untold Hull is an oral history project that records the stories and experiences of people who live, have lived or have experienced the city of Hull in some way. The stories will appear as audio recordings or videos and can be listened to and watched on the Untold Hull website. They will become a permanent part of the digital collections of Hull History Centre and Hull Library Service forming a unique social history archive.

Untold Hull is part of Hull Culture & Leisure Ltd and is funded by the James Reckitt Library Trust.

Many thanks go to our interviewer Jerome Whittingham. Jerome is a photographer, interviewer, and digital media producer living in Hull. He specialises in supporting the voluntary sector, both locally in Hull and regionally.

The William Wilberforce Monument Fund is looking to hire a freelance researcher-interpreter to work on the African Stories in Hull & East Yorkshire Project  The project is supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Closing date:  Friday 22nd July 2016

About the Project
The project is organised by the William Wilberforce Monument Fund which was established in 2013 to promote an awareness of the cultural and historic importance of the Wilberforce legacy in the context of past and modern day slavery. Our main objective was to raise funds to light the Wilberforce monument in time for the Hull UK City of Culture 2017. This project aims to be part of our educational remit to explore the stories of people of African descent in Hull and East Yorkshire from the Wilberforce era of the 1750s until 2007. To understand what we mean by people of African descent please click HERE.

This project is unique to this area and connects with this region’s strong historical association with William Wilberforce and the anti-slavery movement. It intends to demonstrate that an African presence in Britain is not a recent phenomenon and instead will recover stories from around the time of Wilberforce to the present day: 1750-2007. This important new website has been created to showcase the new stories and new research. It will enable and encourage everyone to participate in the collecting of stories of people of African descent by inviting people to view and submit information, ideas, photographs, essays and individual stories. We are also planning exhibitions at Hull History Centre in 2017 and Beverley Treasure House in 2018.

We also welcome contact from anyone of African descent (African, Caribbean, American) who were living in the area before 2007 in order that we can collect contemporary oral recordings of stories for future generations.

If you can help with our research we would love to hear from you! You can contact us with information, images, ideas, suggestions and offers of help by going to our CONTACT US page for more details. Thank you.