Making the most of it: black history and British education

The presentation centred on how to use performance to engage, encounter, promote, and to share and disseminate information based on historical and museum documents in public and private collections about the histories of Northamptonshire’s Black communities and individuals over 500 years, and especially since the arrival of SS Empire Windrush at Tilbury Dock on June 22 1948 with 492 immigrants from Kingston, Jamaica and subsequently immigrations and settlements of black peoples in Northamptonshire. The proposed performance was to derive its materials from three activities of the Northampton Black History Project (NBHP): historical research, community archiving and oral history interviews, all funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Home Office with additional support University of Northampton Office of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning. The performance was to be a collaborative project by the Jawi Theatre Collective, lecturers at the University of Northampton, volunteers and BME groups from Northampton and beyond, and professional artists (playwright, poet, musicians, dancer-choreographer, drummer-instrumentalist, director, stage-manager, and lighting technicians). The project started with a review of archive materials and interviews at Northampton Central Library and the County Records Office and research on the absence of the ‘voices’ or representations of young people of BME backgrounds from these records. This was followed with Drama workshops on Black history with students in some Northampton secondary schools. The project is to create an original playscript from the Black history materials, to stage and tour the performance, using a combination of performance forms such as storytelling, playback (Rowe, 2007), verbatim and documentary drama (Hammond and Steward, 2008), ethnodrama (Saldana (ed.), 2005), music, dance, etc all designed to shine the critical spotlight on subjects such as immigration, race relations and racial discrimination, cultural Identities and Identity crisis, history and education, the internal dynamics of BME communities, achievements and contributions of Black people in Northampton and United Kingdom, etc.