The Commemorating African Jubilee Year 1987-88 @ 30 (AJY) event which took place recently at London’s City Hall was a full house affair. Attendees included school children who read an opening poem, elders, former GLC (Greater London Council) staff, a Jamaican High Commission Minister Counsellor, and one person came from the Caribbean specifically to attend the event.
History consultant Kwaku spoke about the African Jubilee Year Declaration, which birthed the annual marking of Black History Month (BHM) in October in the UK.
The 1987-88 AJY celebrations to a large extent was inspired by the centenary of the birth of Jamaican-born pan-Africanist champion Marcus Garvey in 1887.
AJY also marked the 150th anniversary of the so-called emancipation of enslaved Africans in the British Caribbean, and the 25thanniversary of the founding of the OAU (Organisation of African Unity).
Sally Mugabe stood in for ZimbabweanPresident Robert Mugabe, who had to attend an OAU meeting, as the keynote speaker at the AJY launch on July 31 1987 at Central Hall Westminster. Her host was Linda Bellos, then chair of the LSPU (London Strategic Policy Unit).
Even though the BHM idea had been conceived by the Ghanaian-born Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, then a special projects advisor at the GLC, it was the LSPU that birthed AJY and BHM in 1987. The original idea of Addai-Sebo, who had run African history programmes in the US, was for BHM UK to run as a Season – from October through December, thereby overlapping Kwanzaa, then into February, which is when the north Americans mark BHM.
In addition to contributions from Addai-Sebo, his line manager at the GLC and LSPU Ansel Wong, Paul Boateng, who served as GLC Ethnic Minorities Committee vice chair, and Lord Herman Ouseley, who served as head of the GLC’s Ethnic Minorities Unit, and several officers and councillors including Linda Bellos (Lambeth Councillor; London Strategic Policy Committee chair), Narendra Makanji (Haringey Councillor; LSPU Race Equality Committee), Bernard Wiltshire (ILEA deputy leader), Peter Brayshaw (Camden Councillor, LSPU chief executive), Valerie Wise (head of GLC Women’s Committee), Anne Matthews (Southwark Councillor, London Strategic Policy Committee vice chair), Shirley Andrews (GLC/LSPU Women’s Unit) and Vitus Evans (ALA race lead), were also highlighted.
The BTWSC/African Histories Revisited event ended with a discussion on the way forward for African history delivery, thirty years on from the launch of the AJY Declaration. The panel, which consisted of historian Andrew Muhammad, and community activists Nana Asante and Isis Imlak, pointed to using modern technology such as social media and films to engage young people, whilst adding that as we’re in the midst of the UN’s International Decade for People of African Descent, efforts must be made for people of African heritage to take pride in their African identity, as advocated by Marcus Garvey who was recognised as being central to the introduction of BHM in Britain.
Photos: Des Chisholm
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Photos: Des Chisholm
