ABSTRACT
Accessing 'black history' has been and remains an important part of political activism and a search for a sense of belonging for black people in Britain. Linton Kwesi Johnson was recalling his time as a pupil in Britain during the 1960s, an era when black children were routinely marginalised in the school system. The schools are 'spaces and places in which counter-hegemonic discourses of blackness can be created' and as one mother recalled, the first time she took her son to Saturday school he was inspired by learning history. Specific research indicates that M. Dorothy George was the first modern historian to note the historical presence of black people in Britain. In her 1925 depiction of London life in the eighteenth century, George examined the presence of 'negroes in London' alongside Jewish, Irish and South Asian lascar communities. George's observations have been enriched and challenged by research on the black presence undertaken since her publication.
