ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a revival of the life story of a jazz musician and Second World War resistance soldier of Nigerian descent, August Agboola Browne (1895–1976), whose nom de guerre was ‘Ali’. He is believed to have been the only black participant in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. After he left Poland in the 1950s, his memory was almost totally repressed. Recently, however, his images alongside their associated stories and meanings have resurfaced within public discussions of Warsaw’s past. Their circulation and evolution in Warsaw’s museums and public space is traced through exploring the most important functions this rediscovered historical figure now serves, its decolonial potential and the key social actors who helped it to return. The chapter concentrates on the premises, stakeholders and results of two forms of memory activism: first, the purchase of two portraits of Browne from a series Ali (2015–2017) painted by Polish artist Karol Radziszewski (b. 1980) for the Museum of Warsaw’s new core exhibition The Things of Warsaw (opened 2017–2018); and second, the erection of a monument to Browne in the centre of Warsaw in 2019 on the initiative of an NGO called the Wolność i Pokój (Freedom and Peace) Foundation.
