A Most Significant Archive

Black Cultural Archives (BCA) is UK Black History made real. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to be researching its history and helping further reveal its true importance.

My journey with BCA started over two decades ago, compiling The Guardian newspaper's bestselling wallchart The Black History Timeline in 2008 when all eyes were on US President Barack Obama. As I approached many academics and others, they impressed on me how important it was that I didn’t allow UK Black History to be completely overshadowed by US Black History.

I remember thinking it would be brilliant if there was a place where UK Black History was stored centrally, only to discover that the same idea had been thought of and acted upon by educator Len Garrison and others decades earlier. From that point onward, all roads and conversations led me to the door of Black Cultural Archives.   

I determined that from that moment, I would do whatever I could to support the great work I could see BCA was doing. In 2014, I reached out to offer my support — though I can’t remember how the idea emerged, but I ended up doing the text for The History of Black Britain timeline living history wall.

It was during this work that the full breadth, depth and contribution of BCA to our understanding of UK Black History and British History in general became apparent. It is here that I became fully aware of the great effort/contributions of the founders of BCA – Len Garrison and others – just to get it off the ground.

Moreover, I came to appreciate the full scope of what the BCA archive does itself, taking in as it does the Alexandre Dumas collection, Olive Morris collection, Samuel Coleridge Taylor collection, just to mention a few. I observed up close the great educational work Black Cultural Archives carries out with schools and came to see that BCA is much more than an archive. It acts as a community catalyst, taking the lead on any number of issues and offering a space for creatives and thinkers of all types to develop.

I had imagined there was a massive team behind so many activities, but I was taken by surprise when I realised there was actually quite a small team behind everything. I have seen some excellent research about BCA but nothing that tells its full and complete story. It is as if an organisation that is dedicated to bringing to the fore blind spots in UK History is itself an unknown.

When asked to do a second edition of The Guardian Black History Timeline in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter protests, I made sure I highlighted Black Cultural Archives. When the opportunity arose to research BCA itself at Leicester University, I seized it with both hands. Len Garrison had completed his MA at Leicester, so I had the privilege of having access to his MA thesis about Black people in Nottingham. I also had the privilege of helping establish the Len Garrison Scholarship at the University of Leicester, it is an initiative I remain deeply proud to have contributed to.

I realised I was getting a chance to tell one of the greatest stories hardly ever told. The story of how Len Garrison and others looked at the difficulties and challenges Black people faced in the late 70s and early 80s and gave one of the most creative responses ever: to create a monument to the Black presence in the UK made not just of brick and mortar, but of mind and vision. How a foundation was laid in the deepest recesses of British history itself; how it was also able to withstand all of the winds of change that have swept across the UK since the early 1980s; how that foundation could sustain the ever-developing branches of the Black community and UK Black history to keep growing. I could not have got as far as in my research without the warm support of all those who established BCA and currently work there. They have never hesitated to make time for interviews (sometimes multiple interviews) or answer my questions. Black Cultural Archives is of central importance because it is accessible and helps put UK Black History where it should be: as part and parcel of British history. The BCA’s location – in Brixton and at the centre of the former British Empire – only deepens its significance, demonstrating how a community taking charge of its history has enriched history for all.

Gaverne Bennett is currently conducting PhD research at Leicester into the history of the BCA from 1981-2021. He created The Guardian newspaper’s bestselling Black History Timeline and the Black Literature Timeline for The British Library. For over 25 years, he has been dedicated to highlighting Black history and ensuring Black voices are heard.