Peter Fryer was pivitol in educating the public about the presence of people of African descent in Britain.
 
The son of a master mariner, Fryer was born in Hull on February 18, 1927 and raised in the city.  He won a scholarship to Hymers College in 1938.  He was impressed by the local Communist Party’s opposition to Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists, and when he was 15 he joined the Young Communist League.
 
Aged 16 he became a trainee journalist at the Yorkshire Post.  His Communist views did not sit easily with the paper’s Tory politics and he was dismissed from his job for refusing to leave the Communist Party.  At the end of 1947 he joined the Daily Worker (now the Morning Star) and for this paper he covered the arrival of Caribbean settlers on the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in 1948.
 
His honest reporting of the Hungarian uprising of 1956 led him to write a book Hungarian Tragedy in defence of the revolution and this led to his expulsion from the Communist Party.  Shortly before his death he was informed that Hungary’s president had awarded him the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic, in recognition of his “continuous support of the Hungarian revolution and freedom fight”.
 
Of his many other books, the most well-known is Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain.  Originally published in 1984, this 600-page, meticulously researched volume begins in Roman times with the famous opening words, “There were Africans in Britain before the English came here.”  It continues to be considered the definitive history of Black people in Britain.
 
A highly accomplished blues pianist, he was also a leading authority on blues music, its history and related music in Africa and South America.  At the time of his death he was working on a volume of Black American history – a study of life in Mississippi in the 19th and 20th centuries, under the working title “Behind the Blues”. 
 
Further information:
Yorkshire Post obituary, 4 November, 2006  http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/obituaries/peter-fryer-1-2398379
 
Guardian obituary by Terry Brotherstone, 3 November, 2006
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/nov/03/pressandpublishing.guardianobituaries

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] ** 

While every historian loves the experience of being in an archive and handling documents from the past, the digital age has enabled researchers to quickly find an array of information that they may not have been able to otherwise access. Evidence documenting people of African descent who visited, lived and worked in Hull and East Yorkshire can be found all over the world. For example, pictured below is the death certificate of Oswald Z Paris, a 46-year-old Black man who died on 14 February 1928 in Greensboro, Gilford, North Carolina, USA.[1] While shedding light on his death, this document also demonstrates that he was born in Hull around 1882 and his father was J. K. Paris. Unfortunately, further information on his parents has not yet been found. However, at least one of them must have been of African descent. Further evidence located in America demonstrates that he arrived in New York on 4 April 1902. In 1920, he lived at number 1701 Maudle Avenue, Newport, Virginia with his wife Emma B. Paris and was working as a musician.[2] He later went on to be a music teacher in a school.[3]

Further records from across the Atlantic demonstrate that Hull born Raymond B. Edwards had emigrated to America in the first half of the twentieth century. The information on his U.S. World War II Draft Registration Card shows that he was born in Hull on 2 January 1892 and by 1942 lived at 2746 Mickle Avenue, the Bronx with his wife.[4] It also documents that he worked for the British Government at their Ministry of War Transport Office in New York. As pictured below, he was described as a 50-year-old man with black hair and a dark brown complexion.[5]

We have also identified two Black women that were born in Hull but moved to America for a short time. These were Dorothea Anita Forde and Gwendoline Cecilia Philpot.

As people move from one region to another and sometimes emigrated across the seas to create a new life, they are lost in a larger migration story. Thus, this is a national and international call for information to all family historians. If you have an ancestor who visited, lived or worked in Hull or East Yorkshire and was of African descent please get in touch because we would love to document their presence in the region! Also, if you have further information on the people mentioned in this post we would love to hear from you.

Footnotes
[1] Ancestry.com. North Carolina, Death Certificates, 1909-1976 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.
[2] Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
[3] Ancestry.com. North Carolina, Death Certificates, 1909-1976 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.
[4] The National Archives at St. Louis, Missouri, Draft Registration Cards for Fourth Registration for New York State, 04/27/1942 - 04/27/1942; NAI Number: 2555973, Records of the Selective Service System: 147
[5] Ibid.

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.