`This is one of the most important books on race, representation and politics to come along in a decade.... Sarita Malik′s book is a brilliant contribution to the literature on race, cultural studies and public pedagogy′ - Henry Giroux, Penn State University Representing Black Britain offers a critical history of Black and Asian representation on British television from the earliest days of broadcasting to the present day. Working through programmes as wide-ranging as the early documentaries to `ethnic sitcoms′ and youth television, this book provides a detailed analysis of shifting institutional contexts, images of `race′ and ethnic-minority cultural politics in modern Britain. Representing Black Britain: focuses on issues of representation, ideology, `race′ and difference; covers a spectrum of television genres including documentary, news, comedy, light entertainment, youth television, drama, film and sport; examines the sociopolitical context of Black Britain; and looks at questions of policy and the institutional context of British broadcasting.

Black British Cultural Studies has attracted significant attention recently in the American academy both as a model for cultural studies generally and as a corrective to reigning constructions of Blackness within African-American studies. This anthology offers the first book-length selection of writings by key figures in this field. From Stuart Hall's classic study of racially structured societies to an interview by Manthia Diawara with Sonia Boyce, a leading figure in the Black British arts movement, the papers included here have transformed cultural studies through their sustained focus on the issue of race. Much of the book centers on Black British arts, especially film, ranging from a historical overview of Black British cinema to a weighing of the costly burden on Black artists of representing their communities. Other essays consider such topics as race and representation and colonial and postcolonial discourse. This anthology will be an invaluable and timely resource for everyone interested in cultural studies. It also has much to offer students of anthropology, sociology, media and film studies, and literary criticism.

'An empowering read . . . it is refreshing to see somebody celebrate the role that black Britons have played in this island's long and complicated history' DAVID LAMMY, author of Tribes, in 'The best books of 2020', the Guardian 'Timely and so important . . . recognition is long overdue . . . I would encourage everyone to buy it!' DAWN BUTLER MP A long-overdue book honouring the remarkable achievements of key Black British individuals over many centuries, in collaboration with the 100 Great Black Britons campaign founded and run by Patrick Vernon OBE. 'Building on decades of scholarship, this book by Patrick Vernon and Dr Angelina Osborne brings the biographies of Black Britons together and vividly expands the historical backdrop against which these hundred men and women lived their lives.' From the Foreword, by DAVID OLUSOGA 'I am delighted to see the relaunch of 100 Great Black Britons. For too long the contribution of Britons of African and Caribbean heritage have been underestimated, undervalued and overlooked' SADIQ KHAN, Mayor of London Patrick Vernon's landmark 100 Great Black Britons campaign of 2003 was one of the most successful movements to focus on the role of people of African and Caribbean descent in British history. Frustrated by the widespread and continuing exclusion of the Black British community from the mainstream popular conception of 'Britishness', despite Black people having lived in Britain for over a thousand years, Vernon set up a public poll in which anyone could vote for the Black Briton they most admired. The response to this campaign was incredible. As a result, a number of Black historical figures were included on the national school curriculum and had statues and memorials erected and blue plaques put up in their honour. Mary Seacole was adopted by the Royal College of Nursing and was given the same status as Florence Nightingale. Children and young people were finally being encouraged to feel pride in their history and a sense of belonging in Britain. Now, with this book, Vernon and Osborne have relaunched the campaign with an updated list of names and accompanying portraits -- including new role models and previously little-known historical figures. Each entry explores in depth the individual's contribution to British history - a contribution that too often has been either overlooked or dismissed. In the wake of the 2018 Windrush scandal, and against the backdrop of Brexit, the rise of right-wing populism and the continuing inequality faced by Black communities across the UK, the need for this campaign is greater than ever.

For a decade and a half, since she first appeared in the Birmingham Centre’s collective volume The Empire Strikes Back, Hazel Carby has been on the frontline of the debate over multicultural education in Britain and the US. This book brings together her most important and influential essays, ranging over such topics as the necessity for racially diverse school curricula, the construction of literary canons, Zora Neale Hurston’s portraits of “the Folk,” C.L.R. James and Trinidadian nationalism and black women blues artists, and the necessity for racially diverse school curricula. Carby’s analyses of diverse aspects of contemporary culture are invariably sharp and provocative, her political insights shrewd and often against the grain. A powerful intervention, Culture in Babylon will become a standard reference point in future debates over race, ethnicity and gender.

Black Studies is a hugely important, and yet undervalued, academic field of enquiry that is marked by its disciplinary absence and omission from academic curricula in Britain. There is a long and rich history of research on Blackness and Black populations in Britain. However Blackness in Britain has too often been framed through the lens of racialised deficits, constructed as both marginal and pathological. Blackness in Britain attends to and grapples with the absence of Black Studies in Britain and the parallel crisis of Black marginality in British society. It begins to map the field of Black Studies scholarship from a British context, by collating new and established voices from scholars writing about Blackness in Britain. Split into five parts, it examines: Black studies and the challenge of the Black British intellectual; Revolution, resistance and state violence; Blackness and belonging; exclusion and inequality in education; experiences of Black women and the gendering of Blackness in Britain. This interdisciplinary collection represents a landmark in building Black Studies in British academia, presenting key debates about Black experiences in relation to Britain, Black Europe and the wider Black diaspora. With contributions from across various disciplines including sociology, human geography, medical sociology, cultural studies, education studies, post-colonial English literature, history, and criminology, the book will be essential reading for scholars and students of the multi- and inter-disciplinary area of Black Studies.

How did a distinct and powerful Black British identity emerge? In the 1950s, when many Caribbean migrants came to Britain, there was no such recognised entity as “Black Britain.” Yet by the 1980s, the cultural landscape had radically changed, and a remarkable array of creative practices such as theatre, poetry, literature,South Sudan in War and Peace music and the visual arts gave voice to striking new articulations of Black-British identity.

For over 1500 years before the Empire Windrush docked on British shores, people of African descent have played a significant and far-ranging role in the country’s history, from the African soldiers on Hadrian’s Wall to the Black British intellectuals who made London a hub of radical, Pan-African ideas. But while there has been a growing interest in this history, there has been little recognition of the sheer breadth and diversity of the Black British experience, until now. This collection combines the latest work from both established and emerging scholars of Black British history. It spans the centuries from the first Black Britons to the latest African migrants, covering everything from Africans in Tudor England to the movement for reparations, and the never ending struggles against racism in between. An invaluable resource for both future scholarship and those looking for a useful introduction to Black British history, Black British History: New Perspectives has the potential to transform our understanding of Britain, and of its place in the world.