Your Eminences, Your Magnificences, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. That was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas — something that you too, Magnificent Rector, just mentioned — the experience, in other words, of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason — this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the “whole” of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on — perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara — by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur’an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between — as they were called — three “Laws” or “rules of life”: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur’an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point — itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole — which, in the context of the issue of “faith and reason”, I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις – controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably, “σὺν λόγω,” is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practise idolatry.

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: “In the beginning was the λόγος”. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, “σὺν λόγω” (with logos). Logos means both reason and word – a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” (cf. Acts 16:6-10) – this vision can be interpreted as a “distillation” of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

In point of fact, this rapprochement had been going on for some time. The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and simply declares “I am”, already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates’ attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes t
he words uttered at the burning bush: “I am”. This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria – the Septuagint – is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act “with logos” is contrary to God’s nature.

In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God’s voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God’s freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazn and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which – as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated – unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, “transcends” knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul “λογικη λατρεία,” worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).

This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history – it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.

The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity – a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the programme of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.

Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the postulates of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this programme forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.

The liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ushered in a second stage in the process of dehellenization, with Adolf von Harnack as its outstanding representative. When I was a student, and in the early years of my teaching, this programme was highly influential in Catholic theology too. It took as its point of departure Pascal’s distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In my inaugural lecture at Bonn in 1959, I tried to address the issue, and I do not intend to repeat here what I said on that occasion, but I would like to describe at least briefly what was new about this second stage of dehellenization. Harnack’s central idea was to return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and indeed of hellenization: this simple message was seen as the culmination of the religious development of humanity. Jesus was said to have put an end to worship in favour of morality. In the end he was presented as the father of a humanitarian moral message. Fundamentally, Harnack’s goal was to bring Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, liberating it, that is to say, from seemingly philosophical and theological elements, such as faith in Christ’s divinity and the triune God. In this sense, historical-critical exegesis of the New Testament, as he saw it, restored to theology its place within the university: theology, for Harnack, is something essentially historical and therefore strictly scientific. What it is able to say critically about Jesus is, so to speak, an expression of practical reason and consequently it can take its rightful place within the university. Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant’s “Critiques”, but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature’s capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty. The weight between the two poles can, depending on the circumstances, shift from one side to the other. As strongly positivistic a thinker as J. Monod has declared himself a convinced Platonist/Cartesian.

This gives rise to two principles
which are crucial for the issue we have raised. First, only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be measured against this criterion. Hence the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity. A second point, which is important for our reflections, is that by its very nature this method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question. Consequently, we are faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs to be questioned.

I will return to this problem later. In the meantime, it must be observed that from this standpoint any attempt to maintain theology’s claim to be “scientific” would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self. But we must say more: if science as a whole is this and this alone, then it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by “science”, so understood, and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective “conscience” becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.

Before I draw the conclusions to which all this has been leading, I must briefly refer to the third stage of dehellenization, which is now in progress. In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowadays that the synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was a preliminary inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures. The latter are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieux. This thesis is not only false; it is coarse and lacking in precision. The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed. True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself.

And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is — as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector – the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.

Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world’s profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought – to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: “It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being – but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss”. The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur — this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. “Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God”, said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.

Many people hear the word slavery and it congures up images of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

[QU0TE]“Child labour has serious consequences that stay with the individual and with society for far longer than the years of childhood. Young workers not only face dangerous working conditions. They face long term physical, intellectual and emotional stress. They face an adulthood of unemployment and illiteracy.”
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan [/QUOTE]

Millions of men, women and children around the world are forced to lead lives as slaves. Although this exploitation is often not called slavery, the conditions are the same. People are sold like objects, forced to work for little or no pay and are at the mercy of their ‘employers’.

Today despite that Slavery is prohibited by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery.

We can see women from eastern Europe are bonded into prostitution, children are trafficked between West African countries and men are forced to work as slaves on Brazilian agricultural estates. Contemporary slavery takes various forms and affects people of all ages, sex and race.

What is slavery?

Common characteristics distinguish slavery from other human rights violations. A slave is:

* forced to work — through mental or physical threat;

* owned or controlled by an ‘employer’, usually through mental or physical abuse or threatened abuse;

* dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as ‘property’;

* physically constrained or has restrictions placed on his/her freedom of movement.

This type of bonded labour affects at least 20 million people worldwide. The worst forms of child labour affects an estimated 179 million children around the world in work that is harmful to their health and welfare.

On the 12th June 2005 the annual Big Feat for Little Feet sponsored walk will be held.

Registration costs just £10 (free for under-13s), and a sponsorship target of £100 (£25 if under 13).

When: Sunday 12 June 2005
Where: Kensington Gardens (next to the Albert Memorial), London
Time: 12.00pm

Contact Raj Dasani at r.dasani@antislavery.org for details.
Every footstep takes us closer to ending child slavery.

The crimes committed in the UK have become more serious, and the criminals even younger. It is not just a baseball bat or a knife any more, you are hearing about bullets found here, or a gun used, whether it is a blank or the real thing.

So what is being done for our young Blacks in Britain? We have to regain their respect and confidence. It is also important that we get across to them at an early age, and direct them away from a life of crime. Modern youths are more concerned with what’s on the outside and not what’s inside: the Bling Bling culture. This may give you “nuff respect” on the street but mostly is not currency or a passport to success in the real world.

Everyone keeps saying “education is the key” but if the young people today have to “fit in” to the way society thinks they are supposed to do, we are on a continuous circle. For instance certain body language means different things in different cultures, than they may do in the British sense. Yet, to a teacher these codes may be interpreted as “anti-social” or “aggressive,” thereby leading that child to be considered for exclusion.

“When you control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.”
Carter G. Woodson

All said and done young adults can use the trend of focus groups that are based on self esteem projects, but aren’t we forgetting one basic criterion here! If these young adults saw that they where part of the system too and that they weren’t the cause of the problems, it would undoubtedly improve their self esteem and make a real difference to their lives. But, we know it all comes down to wiping out institutional racism…

“The events, which transpired five thousand years ago; five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now; five years from now or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event.” (John Henrik Clarke)

Lack of prospects not only leads to disillusionment, it can also lead to crime. The government knows it has a great deal to do to recapture the hearts and minds of disillusioned youth. More than a quarter of a century after the introduction of the race relations act, significant differences between ethnic groups in the workplace are still widespread. According to recent research, Black and Asian ethnic minority workers have lower pay than their white counterparts, are more likely to be unemployed, and are less likely to be found in the higher ranks of management. This will continue until Britain makes all people feel they have a stake in society, regardless of race, colour or creed.

It is worth remembering the words from an African proverb: “If we stand tall it is because we stand on the backs of those who came before us.”

“It has been long known for years that the British Education system is failing Black children.”
Ken Livingstone Mayor of London.

These words resonated in my mind as I returned from the “Reaching for the Stars” the third conference for [url=http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/education/lsbc/index.jsp]London Schools and the Blackchild[/url] held at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference in London on Saturday, September 11, 2004.

These facts are nothing new to us here on BlackMag! White teachers’ perceptions have to dramatically change and more Black teachers are needed for it to change in any way. Education should be a right regardless of race.

The reality is that the system is failing all Black children but we are seeing a concerning trait in the statistics: African Caribbean children are underachieving in the system and more importantly Black boys. Three years on from the first conference and what have we seen? A pilot scheme targeting specifically Black children in eighteen schools in the UK. We already know our children can achieve under the right circumstances!

Diane Abbot (MP), Trevor Philips (CRE), Ken Livingstone (Mayor of London), all backed up their research figures with good practice ideals at the conference. Even [url=http://www.100bmol.org.uk" class="style1]100 Black Men of London[/url] supported self esteem and self identity. Stephen Twigg (MP) agreed it was a growing concern.

It is not just one factor that effects our children it is an accumulation of barriers and there is not one simply answer to change this.

Lee Jasper (Policy Advisor) and Kwame Kwei Armah (Playwright and Actor) fired up the audience with words and quotes form past activists. But, lip service isn’t the answer and action from the government and others in the education sector is what is needed.

The most inspirational part of the day for me was seeing two young achievers being recognised for the high academic achievements in their recent GCSE results.

It is going to be interesting to see what developments will be seized and followed up on in the coming months. One thing I do know: we owe it to our children not to let them down.

So what exactly was the “brown baby problem?

On December 7, 1941, America found itself at war. A million Black Americans served in the armed forces, with half of these serving overseas in places like Britain. Many formed relationships with local women and history records the events of what was then known as the Brown Baby Problem…

The government perceived that the colour of their skin would tarnish their opportunities for development in Britain and they would struggle to “fit in.”

When the Black GI’s first came to England they felt liberated from their Life in the USA. However this did not last long when the white GI’s arrived here they were adamant that the Black American soldiers should be treated in Britain exactly as they were in the United States. US troops imposed their segregationist views as if it were a condition of their supporting the allied war effort. So the United States Visting Forces Act, was enacted by US congress in Aug 1942. This stipulated that Black soldiers abroad were subject to the same restrictions and racial segregation as in their home country. So the luggage of racism was transported across to Britain as if part of American military supplies.

The British government came up with a solution send these babies to the US to live with their fathers or adoptive Black families, or the children could be put into homes run either by local authorities or by voluntary organizations. Any fostering or adoption that might then follow would mean that at least some of the “brown babies” would not be totally institutionalised.

Interracial Marriage Denied

Black soldiers in uniform were only allowed to marry white British women with the permission of their commanding officers (and this permission was almost always withheld), they were forbidden from entering official whites-only areas in public places and were subjected to a host of other racial bans which British society had never encountered before.

At the same time, with most eligible white men away in the services and few Black women available, the ‘Tan Yank’ was a hit with many local white women. They found the Black troops fascinating and appreciated their attentiveness and good manners. To them, the Black GI was less bombastic and complaining than his white counterpart. Numerous contemporary surveys and pieces of research support this. An opinion of one twenty year old girl, who said at the time was that the “Blacks were marvelous – treat you as if you are something rare and precious – don’t take you for granted as Englishmen do.”

Women accused of ‘chasing’ Black soldiers were ostracised by the Americans and branded as prostitutes. Consequently many British girls were forced, under pressure, to drop their boyfriends. For those who didn’t and were determined not to allow racism to get in the way of their love, their romances were curtailed when the soldiers were sent away. Marriage was usually out of the question – white officers almost invariably refused permission. Although there were no specific regulations against mixed marriages the reality was that in around twenty states in America in 1946, they were unlawful.

Brown Babies Fate

It seemed that, although a few were adopted when they were very small, the majority of the children were destined to spend childhood and adolescence in statutory or voluntary children’s homes. They were ‘pushed through the system’, being moved from home to home. While some may have had positive experiences, others suffered miserably.

For some of the ‘brown babies’, it was not until they were in their late teens and early twenties that they were able to deal with the combined issues of race and illegitimacy which had caused them much torment as children. However, most simply did not know where they belonged.

As many of them have grown up, suffering prejudice and identity crises, they have become increasingly curious about their roots. Only some of the children can pinpoint the exact moment when they learned about the circumstances of their births. There are those who can ask their mothers and hope that they will be forthcoming. However, many mothers refuse to give any information about their children’s fathers, for fear of opening old wounds.

The Impact

For those women who gave birth to Black children and chose to keep them within their own families the impact was trans-generational. From that time on their family became a mixed race or minority family, within their own culture. Their decision not only impacting on themselves and the child, but on their parents, siblings and extended family.

Some never married but chose to devote their lives to raising their children often in a hostile environment and without the benefit of financial support. Others, married men whom they did not love to provide a father for their child, often with disastrous consequences for them and the child.

The children who have tried to find out about their fathers have met with mixed success. Some have searched fruitlessly for thirty years before finally giving up, while others have discovered all they want to know about their fathers and their families on the other side of the Atlantic after just a few weeks. Still others have stopped midway through their quests for fear of rejection. For many, the process of searching is the only way that they can deal with their colour and the circumstances of their birth and upbringing.

It was not until 1990 the National Personnel Records Centre (NPRC) refused to provide identifying information to war babes searching for a GI father, on the grounds that it was a breach of the Freedom of Information laws. In the late eighties with the support of the Public Citizen Litigation Group in America, Shirley McGlade and an or”War Babes” filed a law suit against NPRC and the Department of Defense, on the grounds that the information sought was legally available within the FOI Act. In November 1990 a settlement was reached, with NPRC agreeing to a number of demands including that they release information about the city, state and date of whatever addresses are contained in the records of the GI. If the father is deceased the entire address is to be released.

The need for legal action to obtain information which in fact should have been available to those searching for GI parents, raises the broader issue of the rights and responsibilities of governments, servicemen and the children they father. The lives of British women who gave birth to ex-nuptial children were never the same.

So even if they these children don’t find what they want, for some it is still a worthwhile journey.

Like many modern students, Charles Darwin exceeded only in subjects that intrigued him.

Although his father was a physician, Darwin was uninterested in medicine and he was unable to stand the sight of surgery. He did eventually obtain a degree in theology from Cambridge University, although theology too was of minor interest to him. What Darwin really liked to do was to tramp over hills, observing plants and animals, collecting new specimens, scrutinizing their structures, and categorizing his findings.

In 1831, when Darwin was only 22 years old, the British government sent Her Majesty^Òs Ship Beagle on a 5 year expedition that would take them first along the coastline of South America and then onward around the world. As was common on such expeditions, the Beagle would carry along a naturalist to observe and collect geological and biological specimens encountered along the route. Thanks to the recommendation of one of Darwin^Òs previous college professors, he was offered the position of naturalist aboard the Beagle.

The Beagle sailed to South America, making many stops along the coast. Here Darwin observed the plants and animals of the tropics and was stunned by the diversity of species compared with Europe.

Perhaps the most significant stopover of the voyage was the month spent in the Galapagos Islands off of the northwestern coast of South America. It was here that Darwin found huge populations of tortoises; and he found that different islands were home to distinctively different types of tortoises. He then found that on islands without tortoises, pricky pear cactus plants grew with their juicy pads and fruits spread out over the ground.

And on islands that had hourdes of tortoises, the prickly pears grew substantially thick, tall trunks, bearing the fleshy pads and fruits high above the reach of the tough mouthed tortoises. He then wondered if the differences in these organisms could have arisen after they became isolated from one another on seperate islands.

The Species

In 1836, Darwin returned to England after the 5 years with the expedition. He became established as one of the foremost naturalist of his time. But constantly gnawing at his mind was the problem of the origin of the species.

Darwin sought to prove his ideal of evolution with simple examples. The various breeds of dogs provided a striking example of what Darwin sought to prove. Dogs descended from wolves, and even today the two will readily cross-breed. With rare exceptions, however, few modern dogs actually resemble wolves. Some breeds, such as the Chihuahua and the Great Dane, are so different from one another that they would be considered seperate species in the wild. If humans could cross-breed such radically different dogs in only a few hundred years, Darwin reasoned that nature could produce the same spectrum of living organisms given the hundreds of millions of years that she had been allowed.

Darwin also maintained that seperate species evolve as a result of the principles of natural selection, or survival of the fittest. He knew that many more members of a species are born than can possibly survive. He also postulated that strong positive genes would be bred and rebred into each new generation of animals. Darwin, contrary to popular belief, never said that human beings evolved from apes. He said that all life began as a primordial soup, with molecules acting on each other. So from the first single celled organism all life came. One single organism, when acted on by several different molecules could give rise to many different species of animals. It is in this way that he stated that Ape and man were similar..each having a similar life^Òs beginning.

Darwin^Òs theories caused the people of the time to begin to question where it was that they actually came from. His response was the book On the Origin of Species. In it he addressed the concerns of the people. He said “It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing in the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms….have all been produced by laws acting around us.

These laws, taken in the highest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance and Variability…; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and Extinction of less-improved forms…

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one, and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixded laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

When you think of titles such as “Black Nationalist”, “Pan-Africanist” and “the father of contemporary Black Nationalism”, only name should come to mind…

That name, of course is Marcus Mosia Garvey. That little African-Jamaican achieved many things in his lifetime. One of the greatest was this drafting of a Declations of rights for Black people:-

Preamble

Be it Resolved, That the Negro people of the world, through their chosen representatives in convention assembled in Liberty Hall, in the City of New York and United States of America, from August 1 to August 31, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and twenty, protest against the wrongs and injustices they are suffering at the hands of their white brethren, and state what they deem their fair and just rights, as well as the treatment they propose to demand of all men in the future.

We complain:

I. That nowhere in the world, with few exceptions, are black men accorded equal treatment with white men, although in the same situation and circumstances, but, on the contrary, are discriminated against and denied the common rights due to human beings for no other reason than their race and color.

We are not willingly accepted as guests in the public hotels and inns of the world for no other reason than our race and color.

II. In certain parts of the United States of America our race is denied the right of public trial accorded to other races when accused of crime, but are lynched and burned by mobs, and such brutal and inhuman treatment is even practised upon our women.

III. That European nations have parcelled out among themselves and taken possession of nearly all of the continent of Africa, and the natives are compelled to surrender their lands to aliens and are treated in most instances like slaves.

IV. In the southern portion of the United States of America, although citizens under the Federal Constitution, and in some states almost equal to the whites in population and are qualified land owners and taxpayers, we are, nevertheless, denied all voice in the making and administration of the laws and are taxed without representation by the state governments, and at the same time compelled to do military service in defense of the country.

V. On the public conveyances and common carriers in the Southern portion of the United States we are jim-crowed and compelled to accept separate and inferior accommodations and made to pay the same fare charged for first-class accommodations, and our families are often humiliated and insulted by drunken white men who habitually pass through the jim-crow cars going to the smoking car.

VI. The physicians of our race are denied the right to attend their patients while in the public hospitals of the cities and states where they reside in certain parts of the United States.

Our children are forced to attend inferior separate schools for shorter terms than white children, and the public school funds are unequally divided between the white and colored schools.

VII. We are discriminated against and denied an equal chance to earn wages for the support of our families, and in many instances are refused admission into labor unions, and nearly everywhere are paid smaller wages than white men.

VIII. In Civil Service and departmental offices we are everywhere discriminated against and made to feel that to be a black man in Europe, America and the West Indies is equivalent to being an outcast and a leper among the races of men, no matter what the character and attainments of the black man may be.

IX. In the British and other West Indian Islands and colonies, Negroes are secretly and cunningly discriminated against, and denied those fuller rights in government to which white citizens are appointed, nominated and elected.

X. That our people in those parts are forced to work for lower wages than the average standard of white men and are kept in conditions repugnant to good civilized tastes and customs.

XI. That the many acts of injustice against members of our race before the courts of law in the respective islands and colonies are of such nature as to create disgust and disrespect for the white man’s sense of justice.

XII. Against all such inhuman, unchristian and uncivilized treatment we here and now emphatically protest, and invoke the condemnation of all mankind.

In order to encourage our race all over the world and to stimulate it to a higher and grander destiny, we demand and insist on the following Declaration of Rights:

1. Be it known to all men that whereas, all men are created equal and entitled to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and because of this we, the duly elected representatives of the Negro peoples of the world, invoking the aid of the just and Almighty God do declare all men, women and children of our blood throughout the world free citizens, and do claim them as free citizens of Africa, the Motherland of all Negroes.

2. That we believe in the supreme authority and given to man as a common possession; that there should be an equitable distribution and apportionment of all such things, and in consideration of the fact that as a race we are now deprived of those things that are morally and legally ours, we believe it right that all such things should be acquired and held by whatsoever means possible.

3. That we believe the Negro, like any other race, should be governed by the ethics of civilization, and therefore, should not be deprived of any of those rights or privileges common to other human beings.

4. We declare that Negroes wheresoever they form a community among themselves, should be given the right to elect their own representatives to represent them in legislatures, courts of law, or such institutions as may exercise control over that particular community.

5. We assert that the Negro is entitled to even- handed justice before all courts of law and equity in whatever country he may be found, and when this is denied him on account of his race or color such denial is an insult to the race as a whole and should be resented by the entire body of Negroes.

6. We declare it unfair and prejudicial to the rights of Negroes in communities where they exist in considerable numbers to be tried by a judge and jury composed entirely of an alien race, but in all such cases members of our race are entitled to representation on the jury.

7. We believe that any law or practice that tends to deprive any African of his land or the privileges of free citizenship within his country is unjust and immoral, and no native should respect any such law or practice.

8. We declare taxation without representation unjust and tyrannous, and there should be no obligation on the part of the Negro to obey the levy of a tax by any law-making body from which he is excluded and denied representation on account of his race and color.

9. We believe that any law especially directed against the Negro to his detriment and singling him out because of his race or color is unfair and immoral, and should not be respected.

10. We believe all men entitled to common human respect, and that our race should in no way tolerate any insults that may be interpreted to mean disrespect to our color.

11. We deprecate the use of the term ‘nigger’ as applied to Negroes, and demand that the word ‘Negro’ be written with a capital ‘N.’

12. We believe that the Negro should adopt every means to protect himself against barbarous practices inflicted upon him because of color.

13. We believe in the freedom of Africa for the Negro people of the world, and by the principle of Europe for the Europeans and Asia for the Asiatics; we also demand Africa for the Africans at home and abroad.

14. We believe in the inherent right of the Negro to possess himself of Africa, and that
his possession of same shall not be regarded as an infringement on any claim or purchase made by any race or nation.

15. We strongly condemn the cupidity of those nations of the world who, by open aggression or secret schemes, have seized the territories and inexhaustible natural wealth of Africa, and we place on record our most solemn determination to reclaim the treasures and possession of the vast continent of our forefathers.

16. We believe all men should live in peace one with the other, but when races and nations provoke the ire of other races and nations by attempting to infringe upon their rights, war becomes inevitable, and the attempt in any way to free one’s self or protect one’s rights or heritage becomes justifiable.

17. Whereas, the lynching, by burning, hanging or any other disgrace to civilization, we therefore declare any country guilty of such atrocities outside the pale of civilization.

18. We protest against the atrocious crime of whipping, flogging and overworking of the native tribes of Africa and Negroes everywhere. These are methods that should be abolished, and all means should be taken to prevent a continuance of such brutal practices.

19. We protest against the atrocious practice of shaving the heads of Africans, especially of African women or individuals of Negro blood, when placed in prison as a punishment for crime by an alien race.

20. We protest against segregated districts, separate public conveyances, industrial discrimination, lynchings and limitations of political privileges of any Negro citizen in any part of the world on account of race, color or creed, and will exert our full influence and power against all such.

21. We protest against any punishment inflicted upon a Negro with severity, as against lighter punishment inflicted upon another of an alien race for like offense, as an act of prejudice and injustice, and should be resented by the entire race.

22. We protest against the system of education in any country where Negroes are denied the same privileges and advantages as other races.

23. We declare it inhuman and unfair to boycott Negroes from industries and labor in any part of the world.

24. We believe in the doctrine of the freedom of the press, and we therefore emphatically protest against the suppression of Negro newspapers and periodicals in various parts of the world, and call upon Negroes everywhere to employ all available means to prevent such suppression.

25. We further demand free speech universally for all men.

26. We hereby protest against the publication of scandalous and inflammatory articles by an alien press tending to create racial strife and the exhibition of picture films showing the Negro as a cannibal.

27. We believe in the self-determination of all peoples.

28. We declare for the freedom of religious worship.

29. With the help of Almighty God, we declare ourselves the sworn protectors of the honor and virtue of our women and children, and pledge our lives for their protection and defense everywhere, and under all circumstances from wrongs and outrages.

30. We demand the right of unlimited and unprejudiced education for ourselves and our posterity forever.

31. We declare that the teaching in any school by alien teachers to our boys and girls, that the alien race is superior to the Negro race, is an insult to the Negro people of the world.

32. Where Negroes form a part of the citizenry of any country, and pass the civil service examination of such country, we declare them entitled to the same consideration as other citizens as to appointments in such civil service.

33. We vigorously protest against the increasingly unfair and unjust treatment accorded Negro travelers on land and sea by the agents and employees of railroad and steamship companies and insist that for equal fare we receive equal privileges with travelers of other races.

34. We declare it unjust for any country, State or nation to enact laws tending to hinder and obstruct the free immigration of Negroes on account of their race and color.

35. That the right of the Negro to travel unmolested throughout the world be not abridged by any person or persons, and all Negroes are called upon to give aid to a fellow Negro when thus molested.

36. We declare that all Negroes are entitled to the same right to travel over the world as other men.

37. We hereby demand that the governments of the world recognize our leader and his representatives chosen by the race to look after the welfare of our people under such governments.

38. We demand complete control of our social institutions without interference by any alien race or races.

39. That the colors, Red, Black and Green, be the colors of the Negro race.

40. Resolved, That the anthem ‘Ethiopia, Thou Land of Our Fathers’, etc., shall be the anthem of the Negro race.

The Universal Ethiopian Anthem
(Poem by Burrel and Ford.)

I

Ethiopia, thou land of our fathers, Thou land where the gods loved to be, As storm cloud at night suddenly gathers Our armies come rushing to thee. We must in the fight be victorious When swords are thrust outward to gleam; For us will the vict’ry be glorious When led by the Red, Black and Green.

Chorus

Advance, advance to victory, Let Africa be free; Advance to meet the foe With the might Of the Red, the Black and the Green.

II

Ethiopia, the tyrant’s falling, Who smote thee upon thy knees, And thy children are lustily calling From over the distant seas. Jehovah, the Great One has heard us, Has noted our sighs and our tears, With His spirit of Love he has stirred us To be One through the coming years. CHORUS — Advance, advance, etc.

III

O Jehovah, thou God of the ages Grant unto our sons that lead The wisdom Thou gave to Thy sages When Israel was sore in need. Thy voice thro’ the dim past has spoken, Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hand, By Thee shall all fetters be broken, And Heav’n bless our dear fatherland. CHORUS — Advance, advance, etc.

41. We believe that any limited liberty which deprives one of the complete rights and prerogatives of full citizenship is but a modified form of slavery.

42. We declare it an injustice to our people and a serious impediment to the health of the race to deny to competent licensed Negro physicians the right to practise in the public hospitals of the communities in which they reside, for no other reason than their race and color.

43. We call upon the various governments of the world to accept and acknowledge Negro representatives who shall be sent to the said governments to represent the general welfare of the Negro peoples of the world.

44. We deplore and protest against the practice of confining juvenile prisoners in prisons with adults, and we recommend that such youthful prisoners be taught gainful trades under humane supervision.

45. Be it further resolved, that we as a race of people declare the League of Nations null and void as far as the Negro is concerned, in that it seeks to deprive Negroes of their liberty.

46. We demand of all men to do unto us as we would do unto them, in the name of justice; and we cheerfully accord to all men all the rights we claim herein for ourselves.

47. We declare that no Negro shall engage himself in battle for an alien race without first obtaining the consent of the leader of the Negro people of the world, except in a matter of national self-defense.

48. We protest against the practice of drafting Negroes and sending them to war with alien forces without proper training, and demand in all cases that Negro soldiers be given the same training as the aliens.

49. We demand that instructions given Negro children in schools include the subject of ‘Negro Hi
story’, to their benefit.

50. We demand a free and unfettered commercial intercourse with all the Negro people of the world.

51. We declare for the absolute freedom of the seas for all peoples.

52. We demand that our duly accredited representatives be given proper recognition in all leagues, conferences, conventions or courts of international arbitration wherever human rights are discussed.

53. We proclaim the 31st day of August of each year to be an international holiday to be observed by all Negroes.

54. We want all men to know we shall maintain and contend for the freedom and equality of every man, woman and child of our race, with our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

These rights we believe to be justly ours and proper for the protection of the Negro race at large, and because of this belief we, on behalf of the four hundred million Negroes of the world, do pledge herein the sacred blood of the race in defense, and we hereby subscribe our names as a guarantee of the truthfulness and faithfulness hereof in the presence of Almighty God, on the 13th day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty.

Marcus Garvey, James D. Brooks, James W. H. Eason, Henrietta Vinton Davis, Lionel Winston Greenidge, Adrion Fitzroy Johnson, Rudolph Ethelbert Brissaac Smith, Charles Augustus Petioni, Thomas H. N. Simon, Richard Hilton Tobitt, George Alexander McGuire, Peter Edward Baston, Reynold R. Felix, Harry Walters Kirby, Sarah Branch, Marie Barrier Houston, George L. O’Brien, F. O. Ogilvie, Arden A. Bryan, Benjamin Dyett, Marie Duchaterlier, John Phillip Hodge, Theophilus H. Saunders, Wilford H. Smith, Gabriel E. Stewart, Arnold Josiah Ford, Lee Crawford, William McCartney, Adina Clem. James, William Musgrave La Motte, John Sydney de Bourg, Arnold S. Cunning, Vernal J. Williams, Frances Wilcome Ellegor, J. Frederick Selkridge, Innis Abel Horsford, Cyril A. Crichlow, Samuel McIntyre, John Thomas Wilkins, Mary Thurston, John G. Befue, William Ware, J. A. Lewis, O. C. Thurston, Venture R. Hamilton, R. H. Hodge, Edward Alfred Taylor, Ellen Wilson, G. W. Wilson, Richard Edward Riley, Nellie Grant Whiting, G. W. Washington, Maldena Miller, Gertrude Davis, James D. Williams, Emily Christmas Kinch, D. D. Lewis, Nettie Clayton, Partheria Hills, Janie Jenkins, John C. Simons, Alphonso A. Jones, Allen Hobbs, Reynold Fitzgerald Austin, James Benjamin Yearwood, Frank O. Raines, Shedrick Williams, John Edward Ivey, Frederick August Toote, Philip Hemmings, F. F. Smith, E. J. Jones, Joseph Josiah Cranston, Frederick Samuel Ricketts, Dugald Augustus Wade, E. E. Nelom, Florida Jenkins, Napoleon J. Francis, Joseph D. Gibson, J. P. Jasper, J. W. Montgomery, David Benjamin, J. Gordon, Harry E. Ford, Carrie M. Ashford, Andrew N. Willis, Lucy Sands, Louise Woodson, George D. Creese, W. A. Wallace, Thomas E. Bagley, James Young, Prince Alfred McConney, John E. Hudson, William Ines, Harry R. Watkins, C. L. Halton, J. T. Bailey, Ira Joseph Touissant Wright, T. H. Golden, Abraham Benjamin Thomas, Richard C. Noble, Walter Green, C. S. Bourne, G. F. Bennett, B. D. Levy, Mary E. Johnson, Lionel Antonio Francis, Carl Roper, E. R. Donawa, Philip Van Putten, I. Brathwaite, Jesse W. Luck, Oliver Kaye, J. W. Hudspeth, C. B. Lovell, William C. Matthews, A. Williams, Ratford E. M. Jack, H. Vinton Plummer, Randolph Phillips, A. I. Bailey, duly elected representatives of the Negro people of the world.

Sworn before me this 15th day of August, 1920.

JOHN G. BAYNE

Notary Public, New York County.
New York County Clerk’s No. 378;
New York County Registers No. 12102.
Commission expires March 30, 1922.

You think you know “Cool Britannia” do you? But how much do you [i]really[/i] know? Here are some facts…

1. There are more than 140,000 racial attacks in the UK each year.
2. London’s children speak more than 130 languages.
3. There are over 1,000 mosques in Britain and 15,000 Muslim doctors.
4. Presently, five out of 514 circuit court judges are black, compared with three out of 480 in 1992.
5. There were 1,306 ethnic minority officers in a police force of 122,265, a percentage of 1.06. This rose in 1985 to 2,223 out of 127,222 in 1995.
6. The most strikingly upwardly mobile ethnic group are the Chinese, of whom 13 per cent are in professional jobs, compared with five per cent in the white population.
7. King Henry VII and VIII employed a black trumpeter known as John Blanke (White). He earned 8d a day in November 1507.
8. Research by Manchester University finds that Britain’s ethnic minority population is unlikely to rise above 10 per cent of the whole.
9. 53 per cent of the current black Caribbean community were born in the UK and 67,000 people described themselves as ‘Black British’.
10. Racial discrimination is rife within the British criminal justice system. The higher echelons of the judiciary, police and the probation service remain white, and black people are more likely to be stopped and searched.
11. Africans were in Britain before the English arrived. They served in the Roman army which occupied southern Britain for 350 years. In AD 210 Libyan-born Septimius Severus, Emperor of Rome, arrived to inspect Hadrian’s Wall where a unit of Ethiopians was stationed at Aballava (now Burgh-by-Sands) near Carlisle.
12. Ethnic minority groups suffer higher rates of unemployment according to [url=http://www.statistics.gov.uk]UK National Statistics[/url] as at Spring 2002. Specific number of those working in (brackets) and a selective breakdown shows:- Bangladeshis are the hardest hit at 24% (58,000)
    Black Africans 14.6% (189,000)
    Other Etnic Group 12.3% (157,000)
    Pakistanis 12.2% (196,000)
    Black Caribbeans 11.4% (264,000)
    Indians 6.2% (469,000)
    Chinese Too small for reliable estimate but higher than Whites (90,000)
    Whites at 4.7% (26,696,000)
    This is despite the fact that Chinese and Black African populations have a higher average level of educational attain than the white population.
13. As at April 2001 there were 58,789,194 people living in the UK comprising the following:-

    Whites 54,153,898 (92%)
    Mixed 677,117 (1%)
    Indian 1,053,411 (1.79%)
    Pakistani 747,285 (1.27%)
    Bangladeshi 283,063 (0.48%)
    Other Asian 247,664 (0.42%)
    Black Caribbean 565,876 (0.96%)
    Black African 485,277 (0.82%)
    Black Other 97,585 (0.16%)
    Chinese 247,403 (0.42%)
    Other 230,615 (0.39%)

    A total of only 7.9% of the UK population are from an ethnic background with Indians making up the largest ethnic group, followed by Pakistanis, Mixed ethnic backgrounds, Black Caribbeans, Black Africans and Bangladeshis. [SOURCE: UK National Statistics Office, 2001

14. Queen Elizabeth I berated the buccaneer John Hawkyns for trafficking in black slaves in 1563. She described it as 'detestable and would call down the Vengeance of Heaven upon the Undertakers'.
15. In 1952 US restriction on West Indian migrants caused Caribbean Immigration to the UK to rise from 1,000 per year to 34,000 in 1962, stabilising at 7,000 per year in the late '60s.
16. The first political leader of Britain's black community was Olaudah Equiano from Eastern Nigeria, who arrived here in 1757, aged 12.
17. The Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole, whose reputation rivalled Florence Nightingale's after the Crimean War, was "cheered and chaired...by adorning soldiers".
18. The first Asian to engage in politics was the poet, philosopher, reformer and journalist Raja Rammohan Roy. Between 1830-1833 Roy submitted "the first authentic statement of Indian views" to the Parliamentary Committee on Indian Affairs.
19. The first Asian to be elected to the House of Commons was Dadabhai Naoroji who as Liberal MP for Central Finsbury in 1892.
20. The first African students' union was founded in 1917.
21. The remains of a young African girl were found in a burial dated c1000 at North Elmham, Norfolk.
22. In 1995 [url=http://www.yush.com]YUSH Ponline[/url] became the first website in the UK with articles and content of interest to Black people. At the time it was also heralded in the mainstream media as Britain’s first Black website…
23. In the North and Scotland just over 1.3 per cent of the population are from ethnic minorities; 8.2 in the West Midlands; 4.8 in the East Midlands; 4.4 in Yorkshire; 1.5 in Wales; while 1 in 10 people in the South-East have African, Caribbean or Asian origins.
24. There are only 891,000 people (or 1.6%) of African-Caribbean descent in the country out of a total population of 54,889,000.
25. First effective black pressure group, the League of Coloured Peoples, was founded by Dr. Harold Arundel Moody in 1931. Stella Thomas, another member, became the first black woman to be called to the Bar in 1933.
26. The London town of Brixton, popularly conceived as a totally black, inner-city area, actually comprise Whites 62.20 % and blacks 42.23. 

Are you an “article” or “bonafide” Rasta or just a culturally keyed someone who wants to know about the various African tribes? Start here…

Agbobo
Ashanti
Bamana
Bamileke
Bariba
Baule
Benoue
Bobo
Bozo
Dida
Djenne Djeno
Djerma
Dogon
Ewe
Fang
Fanti
Fon
Fulani
Guro
Gurunsi
Hausa
Ibibio
Ibo
Igala
Ikenga
Kuba
Lobi
Lulua
Malinke
Mauritanian
Mossi
Nake
Ngonde
Nupe
Orobo
Senufo
Tagbana
Tuareg
Wolof
Yaure
Yoruba