Image: Ref. No.: AC2025/13 (uncatalogued), 'The Papers of Marika Sherwood'
Join us for the inaugural BCA Marika Sherwood Lecture, ‘The Struggle for History’, as we pay tribute to explore how Black British history has been preserved across personal collections, community initiatives, and activist collaborations, and mark the accession of key archival material into our collections.
The lecture, 'The Struggle for History' will be delivered by Professor Hakim Adi, and hosted by Black Cultural Archives’ CEO, Dr Wanda Wyporska, in conversation with a panel featuring:
Activist Wilf Sullivan
Young Historian, A.S. Francis
BCA's Archives Manager, Harlynn Homan
Alongside the discussion, we will honour the contribution of historian and campaigner Marika Sherwood, whose work appears throughout our holdings, including in the papers of Howard G. Williams, Len Garrison, the Runnymede Collection’s periodicals, and the Records of the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA), which she co-founded, and feature selected items from the archives for viewing.
🗓️ Date: Thursday 19 February
⏰ Time: 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
📍 Where: Black Cultural Archives, the event will also be livestreamed
All are welcome. Free for BCA Black Card members | £10 for non-members, includes a complimentary beverage.
Black Card members- If you are interested in attending the event at BCA, please email marketing@bcaheritage.org.uk with “The Struggle for History” in the subject line.
Parking: There are no parking facilities, and parking is limited in the local area. Where possible, we recommend travelling by public transport. There are pay-and-display and Blue Badge spaces located on Effra Road and Saltoun Road, adjacent to Black Cultural Archives.
MEET OUR SPEAKERS
Professor Hakim Adi is an award-winning historian and the first person of African heritage to become a professor of history in Britain. A co-founder of the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA) alongside Marika Sherwood, he is also a former trustee of Black Cultural Archives.
A.S. Francis is a PhD History researcher, charting women’s involvement in Britain’s Black radical organisations during the 1960s-1980s, and the development of a Black women’s movement. Francis's debut book, Gerlin Bean: Mother of the Movement, traces the longstanding and far-reaching activism of community activist and pioneering Black Feminist Gerlin Bean. Francis works in Production at Tate Modern, is a consultant to the Young Historians Project, and co-founder and editor-in-chief of the History Matters Journal, where the late Marika Sherwood served as Honourary Editor before her passing.
Wilf Sullivan served as the TUC’s Race Equality Officer from 2000 until his retirement in 2023, following earlier work with young people in residential care, the criminal justice system, and in workforce planning and equalities in local government. A long‑standing trade unionist, he has held regional and national roles with NALGO/UNISON and contributed to major policy work on race equality in the workplace, including input to the UN Durban Review Conference. He continues to campaign against racism and the far right through roles with Stand Up To Racism, the Together Alliance, Migrant Voice, and as Chair of Trustees at Care4Calais. A keen social historian, he is currently leading a Black Trade Union Oral History project with the TUC Library and London Metropolitan University.
Dr Wanda Wyporska is an activist, historian, and author with decades of leadership experience across organisations such as The Equality Trust, the Society of Genealogists, Black Equity Organisation, and Safe Passage International. A daughter of Windrush, she has worked on racial justice in education, policy, and practice, is a Clore Social Fellow and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and holds a doctorate from Hertford College, Oxford. In addition to her role as Chief Executive at Black Cultural Archives, she also serves as a trustee of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the National Football Museum.
Harlynn Homan is the Archives Manager at Black Cultural Archives. She is an archivist whose practice centres on amplifying underrepresented narratives and promoting genuinely inclusive access to archives. Previously, she served as Project Manager and Archivist at The Citizens’ Archive of India (CAI), a digital oral history archive. Her research interests focus on decolonial archival practices and sustainable income-generation models for archives.