Remembering the Caribbean Community Contributions

The theme for the lecture came from an evaluation request suggesting that the committee explore the African Caribbean community contributions in the UK. We agreed with the idea and the lecture was titled ‘Remembering the Caribbean Community’s Contributions - Perspectives from the Youth, Women and the Elders’.

Donna Henriques talk on African Caribbean Women looked at their historical role and some of the challenges that they still face within their community and society. Sam Springer MBE shared his personal journey of arriving in North London in the 1950s. Unfortunately we were unable to get the young Mayor of Newham to talk about their role but we welcomed Colin Carter who gave us an enlightening historical insight on the Carolinas and the African Gullah community who are known for preserving their African language and cultural heritage as descendants of African slaves. He also shared the Barbados connection with the Carolinas when many British planters went to the Carolinas with their enslaved property to develop new plantations. These African Americans have maintained many cultural characteristics and there are some similarities with present day Barbados life.

Our funders and major contributor to the event The National Archives ‘Caribbean through a lens’ project had a stall where they shared information on the work of the Archives and their project, they also handed out post cards of some of their popular images from the Caribbean and other promotional materials.

The event was chaired by Ron Reid, the Caterers provided tasty refreshment and from the Evaluation forms feedback on the event was very positive.