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Missing Pieces Project: Black Activism in England
A Missing Pieces Project case study by Dr Hannah-Rose Murray, Lecturer in History at the University of Suffolk.
My research project tells the forgotten story of how the English landscape was shaped and forever changed by the lecturing tours of 19th century Black American freedom fighters.
From the former Music Hall on Nelson Street in Newcastle to the Grade II* listed Polytechnic Hall in Falmouth, from the HMS Victory to Buckingham Palace, Black men, women and children spoke in these locations and 100s more, championing the anti-racist and antislavery cause for decades.
But how might our view and understanding of these places change if the 'full' histories of these places were told?
While the National Heritage List for England is a valuable research tool in its own right, the Missing Pieces Project offers everyone the chance to add their research to the List – as I have – and be part of telling the whole story of such remarkable places.
Key statistics
- At least 50 African American freedom fighters lectured at sites currently protected by Historic England
- These sites are located in 189 cities, towns and villages from 44 counties. This does not represent the total number of activists who lectured around Britain, and does not include the number who lectured at sites that no longer exist
- Black freedom fighters spoke in 22 types of venue (for example, town hall, church, chapel, Corn Exchange, guildhall) between 1833 and 1899
Championing causes
As the statistics above show, African American freedom fighters spoke to millions of people in rural communities and large industrial cities.
In their lectures, Black activists spoke about painful and traumatic memories of enslavement. They championed Black heroism and freedom fighters who had resisted enslavement, often at the cost of their own lives, as well as Black and white abolitionists and indigenous nations who risked their lives, families and homes to help fleeing freedom fighters.
They challenged white supremacist institutions, presidents, politicians, and the enslavers they had liberated themselves from. They shamed British politicians, religious ministers and entire regions that supported U.S. enslavement or who aligned themselves to the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War (1861 to 1865).
African American women, men and children lectured, sang and performed their experiences, stories and political protests to every audience imaginable. They spoke to royalty and the aristocracy, reformers, merchants and newspaper editors, and working-class communities across England. On many occasions, activists organised meetings for children, too, as it was important to raise a new generation of anti-racist and antislavery allies to fight against global oppression.
Some of these tours were arranged through established antislavery or reformist networks, with activists stopping at a church and then moving on to another in the same religious circuit.
For example, James Watkins relied on a series of interconnected networks established by white abolitionists working along Wesleyan or Methodist lines, while Frederick Douglass often stayed with Unitarian abolitionists. Reformers such as Henry Highland Garnet found accommodation with supporters of the Free Produce Movement, who often had connections to the local council, newspaper, or key religious networks to organise and rally support for an antislavery meeting.
Black activists touched every corner of England, and thousands of villages and towns across the country today live with the echoes of their visit.
Sites and venues across England
Over the decades, Black women, men and children visited every possible venue in England, including churches, chapels, Friends’ Meeting Houses and Young Men’s Christian Association venues.
They spoke in school rooms and Sunday schools and delivered addresses in town halls, trade halls, guildhalls, corn exchange buildings, working men’s institutes, mechanics’ institutions, collieries, and factories. They also lectured in palaces, country houses, concert halls, theatres, taverns, pubs, hotels, literary institutions, and restaurants.
While many of these sites have been demolished, bombed during the Second World War, or simply taken down and replaced, many continue to be used by various communities and are protected and preserved by Historic England.
As sacred and consecrated sites in the history of Black liberation, these places of activism serve as monuments to African American histories, lives, and testimonies. Day after day, night after night, hour after hour, African American orators in their 100s pushed not only their voices but their minds, bodies, and souls to breaking point. Every single lecture was a protest against racism, white supremacist violence, white terrorism and enslavement.
If the walls of churches, chapels, or town halls could talk, they would tell powerful, emotional and hard-hitting stories of Black life, liberty and love that have been deliberately erased from our landscape. It is important we recognise their activism and how their international and inspiring campaigns for liberty, anti-racism and social justice still resonate today in our contemporary civil rights movements across the globe.
Written by Dr Hannah-Rose Murray, Lecturer in History at the University of Suffolk
For more information about her research, visit https://frederickdouglassinbritain.com/
Gallery
Please click on the gallery images to enlarge and find out more about each lecture site.
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