Looking back at 2020 with our Managing Director, Arike Oke

Dear friends,

The year we have all been through together has tested everyone, across the world. Black Cultural Archives has been changed by the events of this year, and by the freely given generosity of our community and supporters, such that we will never be the same again. We go forward into 2021 with renewed purpose, renewed vigour and renewed vision. We are humbled by the support we continue to receive, from donations to advice, new opportunities and international avenues.

In reflecting on the past twelve months, it feels right to recognise the Afrikan family festival of Kwanzaa, which ends on the 1st of January. This whistle-stop round of up 2020 is split into the 7 Kwanzaa principles.

 The first day of Kwanzaa is Umoja: Unity. This year BCA has been using its active voice on Windrush and Black Lives Matter.

We began 2020 by holding a public meeting in Lambeth Town Hall to update and bring together information about the Windrush Compensation Scheme. Over the year our support of the people affected by the Home Office’s immigration policies (the Windrush Scandal) has evolved via our partnership with legal firm McKenzie Beute and Pope, our supporters The Funding Network, JCWI, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Patrick Vernon and London Borough of Lambeth, and our commitment to using our influence in support of our community. We accepted the invitation to join the government’s Windrush Working Group and are gradually shifting policy. September saw our online conference, Windrush Next, which dove into the issues and challenges and commemorations of the Windrush period. In June we ran a series of online celebrations of the Windrush period, our friends Decolonising the Archive released specially made content, and we shared oral histories from our collections so that researchers could continue to study this pivotal period in British history.

When we heard of the killing of George Floyd we were all hit hard. It took us a while to begin to process what had happened and what that meant. Already dealing with the move to remote working for some of the team, and furlough for others in the team, we were floored. Our marketing supplier The Girl in the Red Glasses (TGRG) created a series for us on social media that remembered the UK victims of police violence. I worked with the trustees to create our statement, and I advised other cultural institutions on their responses. Despite the challenges we were already facing due to the pandemic’s disruption, our Archives Supervisor Rhoda Boateng, stepped up to create a digital call out to capture the summer’s activism into our collections. Over 200 people contacted her with potential donations. I will always be humbled by how the BCA family pulled together to respond and support each other and the Black Lives Matter debates, behind the scenes we’ve been able to influence beyond the cultural sector and to keep some of these issues alive into 2021.

The second day of Kwanzaa is Kujichagulia: Self-Determination

Despite the pandemic closing our home at 1 Windrush Square in March we went ahead and launched our 10 year strategy in a packed virtual town hall event in May. I loved interacting with you all, hearing your views and sharing our vision to 2030. BCA has gone from the fragility of a charity that has survived on the passion, skills and goodwill of our community (but with no savings or financial buffer for hard times) to a charity with a renewed mission, a healthy and growing network, and finishing our financial year with a small surplus. Finally achieving a level of financial stability for our charity has been a major win for us in 2020 and this is mainly down to the generosity and incredible faith that you and our supporters have shown us. Closing 1 Windrush Square meant that our ability to generate our own income wasn’t possible anymore: no more room hires, no more café, no more bookshop, in person events, workshops or exhibition visitors. We’ve learned, especially with the support of Niche on Demand, how to use our expertise and our collections digitally to earn income during Black History Month. We are humbled by the donations that individuals and organisations sent to us to help us get through.

Financial independence for BCA means true self determination for BCA. It means that we can be politically independent, and that we can guide our journey according to our ethics and point of view.

The third day of Kwanzaa is about Ujima: Collective work and responsibility

Although BCA’s core mission is preserving, documenting and celebrating the histories of African descent people in the UK, I’m determined that BCA should use its position to support other Black-led groups, causes and organisations. This is why we are part of the Mayor of London’s advisory groups for the remembrance of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, and for Africa in London. As part of these groups BCA can make sure that others are brought into the discussions and programming. It’s also why we included budget to support the hire costs for grassroots groups to use 1 Windrush Square when the Covid restrictions allow us to reopen our venue. We know that our building should be a convening place and community resource on top of its core role in protecting and sharing our heritage collections. We also know that the running costs of our Grade II* listed building are beyond our means, and not becoming any more affordable as the building ages. Being able to secure funding to help support the costs of our building, therefore allowing other groups to use it without high hire charges is a significant win for us.

Working with architects Urban Symbiotics and Julian Mcintosh, and with support from Lambeth and the Arts Council, we created a Covid-safe garden, and new Covid measures in the rest of the building for our late summer (between lockdowns) re-opening of 1 Windrush Square. People could now safely return to BCA, and our friends Poetic Unity could restart the regular in person spoken word nights again, which they had run on our Instagram during the first lockdown. Our venue team, Keith, Issa and Michael could come back from furlough to welcome visitors again.

Day four of Kwanzaa is Ujamaa: Co-operative Economics. BCA is becoming more resilient, flexible and entrepreneurial

BCA would not have made it to the end of this year of challenge and change without the donations, grants and support of our community and beyond. From the individual donations via justgiving, text and the CAF, to donations from festivals, sausage sales(!), events, networks and even people taking on fundraising challenges, to the formal bids that we have spent hundreds of hours writing this year: thank you all. You have saved this charity.

Not only have you saved BCA, but you’ve also put us in the best position for creating our business plan for the coming years in which we expect Covid to still throw us a few curveballs. From developing new ways for us to interact remotely, and allowing us to hire our first administrative assistant, Jasmine, to new ways to make sure that we can share our collections online, touring and in-person. 2021 already has some exciting announcements in store as we reach into new media with new partners.

Nia: Purpose is the theme for day five of Kwanzaa. Making teaching and learning about Black history available to everyone is one of the pillars of our mission.

The resilience of our Leaning and Engagement Manager, Ayshah Johnston, was tested this year as all of her in person schools workshops and events had to be cancelled. She nimbly seized the opportunity to collaborate with Stateside academic Daisha Brabham on a series of online panels that looked at Black culture and experience in America and Britain: Bridging the Atlantic was one of my personal highlights of the year. Beyond that series Ayshah now runs online schools workshops, and created various other online events that delved into Black history. We were delighted, with the support of TGRG, to host events celebrating Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series, including what could be McQueen’s most candid interview to date.

Just before the first lockdown in March we’d opened our landmark exhibition with noted photographer Joy Gregory. Breaking Barriers is part of the series sponsored by JP Morgan and included the portraits and stories of five incredible Black women professionals. Thanks to support from the City Bridge Trust and Bloomberg Philanthropies we could move the exhibition online when lockdown struck. The online exhibition was used by schools as lockdown homework, and featured in Tatler magazine, Metro, the Londonist and more.

Day six of Kwanzaa, new year’s eve, is dedicated to Kuumba: Creativity

This year one of my personal goals for BCA was achieved as for our 2020 Black Futures Month* commission we welcomed Black artists and curators to respond to the BCA collections, with support from Arts Council England. The results are incredible and form an entirely new view of Black history and heritage. We’re humbled to have hosted the artists and curators. You can view their residencies on our new digital showcase space in the Re-Imagining Care and Digital Residences series.

Bloomberg Philanthropies and Historic England are separately helping us to share BCA beyond 1 Windrush Square. Our new content on the Bloomberg Connects app is the product of the creativity of curator Natalie Fiawoo, while Sandra Shakespeare is working on the Historic England project to research and share our building’s story and treasures remotely including the mysterious collection of objects from the diaspora.

Imani: Faith is the Kwanzaa principle for the 1st of January.

Drawing on the best of ourselves for 2021 will see BCA continue its resilience journey (thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Warner Music Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund, Lambeth and other generous supporters), curate a film festival, celebrate in person gatherings again, welcome a new Chair of the Board of Trustees, and our 40th anniversary. Not least, but finally, we are delighted that we’ll be starting a new project working on the archives of Black mental health we hold, with help from the Wellcome Trust, and developing an innovative cultural workforce development programme with our incomparable team member Karis Morris-Brown, partners Inclusive Boards, and supported by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation.

With so much happening it’s easy to forget that BCA’s core team, people whose jobs are not created for projects, currently numbers only seven people. I am indebted to the team, to the Board of Trustees and our Chair Dawn Hill CBE, and to our network of partners, supporters, friends and family for everything that we achieve, and for the support when things do not go according to plan. There are too many of you to name, and so I hope that those of you not mentioned above will forgive me.

Bring on 2021. We are ready.

Best of wishes for the New Year,
Arike Oke, Managing Director.

*BCA celebrates Black Futures Month in October, as for us Black History is an all year round event.