“And from whence are you
Little brown girl?
I guess Africa or India
Ah no, from some island
In the West Indies,
But isn’t that India All the same?”
— Una Marson, 1905-1965.
For many, the British Caribbean story begins in 1948, when HMT Empire Windrush carried nearly 500 nurses, engineers and other skilled workers from the Caribbean to Tilbury Port, near London. While black people have been present in Britain since the second and third centuries, the government’s call for workers to help rebuild post-war Britain resulted in the mass migration that is now seen as the beginning of modern, multicultural British society.
Read article here: Our Words: Black British Oral Histories | Black Ballad.
SAMARA LINTON 