Welcome to the Bernie Grant Archive, a tribute to the life and times of the late Bernie Grant MP.
Through this site you can learn not only his story, but also that of the generation of black and global majority citizens who arrived in Britain in the post war period.
This website contains a browsable and searchable inventory of the Bernie Grant Archive which is kept at the Bishopsgate Institute in the City of London.
Bernie Grant – A Short Biography
LATEST NEWS:
Bernie Grant Memorial Lecture 2024:
History Matters: Affirming the History of Africa and the African Diaspora, by Professor Hakim Adi
The Bernie Grant Trust is a charity, and relies on donations to maintain and preserve its unique archive, and to run social and educational projects using the collection. Please help us by giving today! Click on the button below to make an online donation.
You can also use this QR code to make a donation to the Bernie Grant Trust with PayPal:
Educational Resources for Schools – Embracing the Black Experience
The Bernie Grant Trust will launch its new educational microsite for teachers, in the Jubilee Room at the House of Commons on 12th March 2020 at 17.15
The resources have been produced as part of the Bernie Grant Trust’s “Marginalised No More” programme, funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project’s objective was to use the extensive Bernie Grant Archive to acquaint a new generation of citizens with the largely undocumented experiences and struggles in recent black history in the 1980’s and 1990’s, as well as encouraging appreciation of the value of archives.
The resources were developed after considerable consultation with teachers, and guided by the many challenges they face in acknowledging diversity, identity and inclusion issues in the classroom. Time pressures were identified as a major constraint on teachers, as was the narrowing of curriculum options in recent years, along with few of them being aware of archival resources, making it more and more difficult to teach black history specifically – or indeed issues arising from it.
In recognition of these constraints we have emphasised the need for flexibility and accessibility in developing these resources for teachers. We believe they may be used in a wide variety of lesson planning contexts, and for “everyday teaching”, rather than just for Black History month.
Trustee Patrick Vernon OBE commented:
“The Bernie Grant Archive is a rich resource providing a unique record of the experiences of Black Britons in recent history. As one of Britain’s first black political representatives, the late MP left us a rich source of information about disadvantage, discrimination and injustice, and the various ways in which the black community fought to establish its place in society.
We hope that the microsite developed from the archive, will help teachers to make pupils aware that black people were present and active in society in this period, about the conditions they faced, and how they fought for a place in Britain – and that it will help young people themselves as they wrestle with the many issues they face as citizens in society which increasingly challenges the rights of ethnic minorities”.
Sharon Grant OBE, Secretary to the Trust said: “We are grateful to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for funding the wider project of which this is part, to the many teachers and others who engaged with us in our consultations, to the Parliamentary Education Service, and to the Chief Archivist at Bishopsgate Institute, which houses the archive. Our thanks are due too to our consultant Helen Sanson, Director of Forcera, for her insightful work in developing this resource”.
Places at the launch in the Jubilee Room are limited. Reservations may be made by registering your interest at https://bgtresources.eventbrite.co.uk
For further information contact: projects@berniegranttrust.org.uk or call 07804 827 812
Click here for pdf version of Educational Resources Launch information
There is a page about the 2019 Memorial Lecture. Click here
This site now has a page about the Marginalised No More Project. Click here
To mark Burns Night 2017 read about When Bernie met Rabbie Burns.
Lord Gifford’s Broadwater Farm Revisited Report now available to download
Following his well received Broadwater Farm Inquiry report, in 1988 Haringey Council asked Lord Gifford to review progress against his recommendations. Broadwater Farm Revisited, published in 1989 is an equally important and unique document, which chronicles in detail the struggles of a riot torn community to re-assert itself and to rebuild community police relations, despite numerous appalling miscarriages of justice and abuses of civil rights.
Click here to go to the chapter by chapter downloads.
Highlight: Bernie Grant’s parliamentary questions and speeches
Over 13 years as an MP Bernie Grant made use of his position to articulate the concerns of the community of his day on the floor of the House of Commons. His speeches were often powerful and moving, and always listened to intently. He was often too in advance of public opinion, his speeches attracting much controversy at the time – although in many cases this may be hard for us to understand given changes in public opinion on many issues, such as racism and anti-apartheid.
You can access his parliamentary questions and speeches here on the They Work For You website.
Lord Gifford’s Broadwater Farm Inquiry Report now available to download
Thirty years ago saw the worst ever rioting in the UK, after black mother Cynthia Jarrett died as police raided her home, following rising tension between police and the black community in Tottenham, North London. The death of policeman PC Keith Blakelock during the riot, on the Broadwater Farm Estate, prompted outrage nationally – but also locally, as the search for those responsible rode roughshod over civil rights, leading to widespread racist vilification, and ultimately the wrongful conviction of innocent individuals.
The independent Broadwater Farm Inquiry, chaired by Lord Gifford pre-dates the digital age, and has not previously been available on-line. It was commissioned by the local authority to establish the truth about what happened, and reported in 1986. It countered many of the disturbing myths which had already grown up about the events of 1985, and placed them in the context of urban and policing policies of the day, and of highly racialised media bias. For the first time, we make the report available digitally.
Click here to go to the chapter by chapter downloads.
30th Anniversary of the Broadwater Farm disturbances of 1985
The riots on the Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham in 1985 were described as the worst ever on mainland Britain. A policeman PC Keith Blakelock was sadly killed during the riots and there followed months of intense media focus on the estate, on the search for the culprits, and on Bernie Grant himself. It was in this climate that three young men, Winston Silcott, Mark Braithwaite, and Engin Raghip were wrongly convicted of the murder in 1987, only to be released four years later when it was found that the evidence against them had been fabricated.
This newly discovered original paper by the late Dorothy Kuya, believed to have been written during her work for an enquiry into the disturbances, examines the distortions and racism which characterised the media coverage during those early months.
Click on this link or the image below to download the report.
The Bernie Grant Memorial Lecture 2015
by Gary Younge. 10th September 2015
The award winning Guardian journalist Gary Younge gave the Bernie Grant Memorial Lecture 2015 at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre, Tottenham, London N15 on 10th September 2015.
After more than a decade of reporting in the USA Gary Younge argued that even as America celebrates the election of a Black president, the sanctity of black life is still denied. The litany of black people being murdered by police and the large number of policemen who get away with it, provides an ugly metaphor for the contempt for black life in this post-civil rights, post-industrial moment – dispensable, despised and discarded.
The lecture was followed by a discussion chaired by Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP – Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs with panellists Deborah Owhin, Nathanial Tobias Coleman, Miranda Grell, and Phillip Udeh.
TEXT of 2015 Bernie Grant Memorial Lecture
The following is a link to some photographs of the event.
http://www.allimages.net/blacklivesmatter/
Marginalised No More: Marking the 15th anniversary of Bernie’s death, a celebration of black political representation
On 8th April 2015 at The Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham a well attended event was held in memory of Bernie’s life. It focused on his achievements and drew attention to black and minority ethnic candidates standing for parliament in May 2015.
You can see an album of photographs of the evening by local photographer David Tothill by clicking here.