The Portsmouth Black History Group has been awarded a grant by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to fill a gap in the Portsmouth archives by documenting the experiences of the pioneering African and Caribbeans who made the city their home after the Second World War.
Today, Portsmouth Black History Group, is announcing a £68,645 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to use oral history interviews to capture the stories that are distinctive to the Black community in Portsmouth.
The Portsmouth Black Stories project will record the memories of members of the African and Caribbean community who came to Portsmouth between the end of the Second World War and the 1980s. While history tells of Black individuals in Portsmouth over several centuries, it is only in this recent period that significant numbers have made Portsmouth their home. The project will aim to remember and record some of those who joined the armed forces, worked in the dockyard and NHS, and opened shops, businesses and the first specialist hair salons in the city, as well as exploring the social and cultural scene in Portsmouth at that time.
The interviews will be deposited with Portsmouth History Centre to secure and share this heritage for current and future generations.
The local lens of the project will make it distinct. In contrast to Black History as taught in schools, which often centres around American Civil rights movement pioneers such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, the project aims to be more relevant to Portsmouth communities, especially Black children growing up here in the city.
The project plans to work with local schools and also to create pop-up exhibitions in various community venues in the area.
Marie Costa, Chair of Portsmouth Black History group explained: “We will reveal the challenges we faced and overcame in finding housing, employment, in tackling ignorance and racism and expressing our culture. We hope that the project will lead to a greater appreciation of the city’s diversity and greater respect and tolerance for all its individuals and their cultures.
“Our stories are valuable to us and our community but we also believe passionately that they need to be told to the wider community in the city and handed down to future generations. This will ensure that the contribution of Africans and Caribbeans in changing the social fabric of the city, is properly reflected and that the record of Portsmouth’s post-war development is more complete.”
The project is in collaboration with Portsmouth City Council, The National Museum of the Royal Navy, the University of Portsmouth and Portsmouth Creates. It will also feed into the city’s Portsmouth 100 centenary celebrations and seek to boost Portsmouth’s bid to become the UK City of Culture. Thanks to National Lottery players, we are able to record this vital part of Portsmouth’s history and share it with a wider audience.
African and Caribbean people who have stories to tell, memories to share or artefacts to contribute, or those who would like to volunteer to help with the project please get in touch.
Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. That’s why as the largest funder for the UK’s heritage we are dedicated to supporting projects that connect people and communities to heritage, as set out in our strategic plan, Heritage 2033. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.
Over the next 10 years, we aim to invest £3.6billion raised for good causes by National Lottery players to make a decisive difference for people, places and communities.
