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Black British people are a multi-ethnic group of British citizens of either
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
or
Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...
descent.Gadsby, Meredith (2006), ''Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival'', University of Missouri Press, pp. 76–77. The term ''Black British'' developed in the 1950s, referring to the Black British West Indian people from the former Caribbean British colonies in the West Indies (ie, the New Commonwealth) now referred to as the Windrush Generation and people from Africa, who are residents of the United Kingdom and are British. The term ''black'' has historically had a number of applications as a racial and political label and may be used in a wider sociopolitical context to encompass a broader range of non-European
ethnic minority The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...
populations in Britain. This has become a controversial definition. ''Black British'' is one of various self-designation entries used in official UK ethnicity classifications. Black residents constituted around 3 per cent of the United Kingdom's population in 2011. The figures have increased from the 1991 census when 1.63 per cent of the population were recorded as Black or Black British to 1.15 million residents in 2001, or 2 per cent of the population, this further increased to just over 1.9 million in 2011. Almost 97 per cent of Black Britons live in England, particularly in England's larger urban areas, with most (over a million) Black British living in
Greater London Greater may refer to: *Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality (mathematics), inequality *Greater (film), ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film *Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record *Greater (song), "Greate ...
.


Terminology

The term ''Black British'' has most commonly been used to refer to
Black people Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in s ...
of New Commonwealth origin, of African descent. For example, Southall Black Sisters was established in 1979 "to meet the needs of black (Afro-Caribbean and African) women" as well as to support the needs of Asian women. Note that "Asian" in the British context usually refers to people of
South Asian South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, ...
ancestry. ''Black'' was at the time inappropriately used to mean "non- white British". In the 1970s, a time of rising activism against racial discrimination, the main communities so described were from the British West Indies and the Indian subcontinent. Solidarity against racism and discrimination sometimes extended the term at that time to the Irish population of Britain as well. Several organisations continue to use the term to be inclusive even though Black people find it offensive, such as the
Black Arts Alliance The National Black Arts Alliance (NBAA), originally known as the Black Arts Alliance (BAA) when it was established in 1985, is a British national members' network committed to the development of arts and artists from Black cultural communities throu ...
, who extend their use of the term to Latin Americans and all refugees, and the National Black Police Association. The official
UK Census Coincident full censuses have taken place in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801, with the exceptions of 1941 (during the Second World War), Ireland in 1921/Northern Ireland in 1931,https://www.nisra.gov. ...
has separate self-designation entries for respondents to identify as "Asian British", "Black British" and "Other ethnic group". Due to the Indian diaspora and in particular Idi Amin's expulsion of Asians from Uganda in 1972, many British Asians are from families that had previously lived for several generations in the British West Indies or the
Comoros The Comoros,, ' officially the Union of the Comoros,; ar, الاتحاد القمري ' is an independent country made up of three islands in southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. It ...
.


Census classification

The
1991 UK census A nationwide census, commonly known as Census 1991, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday 21 April 1991. This was the 19th UK census. ''Census 1991'' was organised by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys in England and Wales, th ...
was the first to include a question on ethnicity. As of the
2011 UK Census A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National ...
, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) allow people in England and Wales and Northern Ireland who self-identify as "Black" to select "Black African", "Black Caribbean" or "Any other Black/African/Caribbean background" tick boxes. For the 2011 Scottish census, the General Register Office for Scotland (GOS) also established new, separate "African, African Scottish or African British" and "Caribbean, Caribbean Scottish or Caribbean British" tick boxes for individuals in Scotland from Africa and the Caribbean, respectively, who do not identify as "Black, Black Scottish or Black British". In all of the UK censuses, persons with multiple familial ancestries can write in their respective ethnicities under a "Mixed or multiple ethnic groups" option, which includes additional "White and Black Caribbean" or "White and Black African" tick boxes in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.


Historical usage

''Black British'' was also a term for those Black and mixed-race people in Sierra Leone (known as the Krio) who were descendants of migrants from England and Canada and identified as British. They are generally the descendants of black people who lived in England in the 18th century and freed Black American slaves who fought for the Crown in the American Revolutionary War (see also
Black Loyalists Black Loyalists were people of African descent who sided with the Loyalists during the American Revolutionary War. In particular, the term refers to men who escaped enslavement by Patriot masters and served on the Loyalist side because of the Cro ...
). In 1787, hundreds of London's
black poor Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have ...
(a category that included the East Indian seamen known as lascars) agreed to go to this West African colony on the condition that they would retain the status of
British subject The term "British subject" has several different meanings depending on the time period. Before 1949, it referred to almost all subjects of the British Empire (including the United Kingdom, Dominions, and colonies, but excluding protectorates ...
s, live in freedom under the protection of the
British Crown The Crown is the state (polity), state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, British Overseas Territories, overseas territories, Provinces and territorie ...
, and be defended by the Royal Navy. Making this fresh start with them were some white people (see also
Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
), including lovers, wives, and widows of the black men. In addition, nearly 1200 Black Loyalists, former American slaves who had been freed and resettled in Nova Scotia, and 550 Jamaican Maroons also chose to join the new colony.


History


Antiquity

There is evidence of people with African (largely North African) ancestry in Roman Britain. A
craniometric Craniometry is measurement of the cranium (the main part of the skull), usually the human cranium. It is a subset of cephalometry, measurement of the head, which in humans is a subset of anthropometry, measurement of the human body. It is disti ...
study of 22 individuals from
Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
, Roman London, found that four of them appeared to be of likely African ancestry, and
isotopic analysis Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature, abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food web, ...
of their bones suggested childhoods spent in a climate warmer than Roman Britain. Analysis of autosomal DNA from four individuals from Roman London found that one had North African ancestry, with brown eyes and dark brown or black hair. Bone isotopes suggested that this individual, a male aged over 45 years, had spent his childhood in the London region. The
Ivory Bangle Lady The Ivory Bangle Lady is a skeleton found in Sycamore Terrace, York in 1901. She was a high-status adult female, potentially of North African descent, who died in York in the 4th century AD. Her skeleton was found with bracelets, pendants, earri ...
whose rich burial was found in York also had cranial features that hinted at an admixed white/black ancestry. Her
sarcophagus A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
was made of stone and also contained a jet bracelet and an ivory bangle, indicating great wealth for the time."Africans in Roman York?"
, University of Reading, 26 February 2010. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
There is written evidence of the presence in Roman Britain of residents from Romanised North Africa, a region on the coast of modern Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. The inscriptions suggest that most of these inhabitants were involved with the military. Some were in the upper echelons of society, however the population of these regions were largely Berber people, rather than black Sub-Saharan Africans. According to the ''
Augustan History The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the sim ...
'', North African Roman emperor
Septimus Severus Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succe ...
supposedly visited
Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall ( la, Vallum Aelium), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Hadriani'' in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. R ...
in 210 AD. While returning from an inspection of the wall, he was said to have been mocked by an "Ethiope" soldier holding a garland of cypress-boughs. Severus ordered him away, reportedly being "frightened" by his dark skin colour and seeing his act and appearance as an omen. The "Ethiope" is written to have said: "You have been all things, you have conquered all things, now, O conqueror, be a god."


Anglo-Saxon England

In 2013, a skeleton was discovered in Fairford, Gloucestershire, which forensic anthropology revealed to be that of a Sub-Saharan African woman. Her remains have been dated between the years 896 and 1025. Local historians believe she was likely either a
slave Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
or a
bonded servant Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation. Where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, the per ...
.


16th century

Early in the 16th century,
Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously ...
likely brought servants from Africa among her retinue when she travelled to England to marry
Arthur, Prince of Wales Arthur, Prince of Wales (19/20 September 1486 – 2 April 1502), was the eldest son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. He was Duke of Cornwall from birth, and he was created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester in 1489. As ...
; she would go on to marry his younger brother
Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
. A black musician is among the six trumpeters depicted in the royal retinue of Henry VIII in the Westminster Tournament Roll, an illuminated manuscript dating from 1511. He wears the royal
livery A livery is an identifying design, such as a uniform, ornament, symbol or insignia that designates ownership or affiliation, often found on an individual or vehicle. Livery will often have elements of the heraldry relating to the individual or ...
and is mounted on horseback. The man is generally identified as the "
John Blanke John Blanke (also rendered Blancke or Blak) ( fl. 1501–1511) was a musician of African descent in London in the early 16th century, who probably came to England as one of the African attendants of Catherine of Aragon in 1501. He is one of the ...
, the blacke trumpeter," who is listed in the payment accounts of both Henry VIII and his father, Henry VII."John Blanke-A Trumpeter in the court of King Henry VIII"
. Blackpresence, 12 March 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
A group of Africans at the court of
James IV of Scotland James IV (17 March 1473 – 9 September 1513) was King of Scotland from 11 June 1488 until his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. He inherited the throne at the age of fifteen on the death of his father, James III, at the Battle of Sauchi ...
, included Ellen More and a drummer referred to as the " More taubronar". Both he and John Blanke were paid wages for their services. A small number of black Africans worked as independent business owners in London in the late 1500s, including the silk weaver
Reasonable Blackman Reasonable Blackman ( 1579–1592) (also possibly known as John Reason and Reasonable Blackmore) was a silk weaver resident in Southwark, London, in the late sixteenth century. He was among the earliest people of African heritage to be living and ...
. When trade lines began to open between London and West Africa, persons from this area began coming to Britain on board merchant and slaving ships. For example, merchant John Lok brought several captives to London in 1555 from Guinea. The voyage account in Hakluyt reports that they: "were tall and strong men, and could wel agree with our meates and drinkes. The colde and moyst aire doth somewhat offend them." During the later 16th century as well as into the first two decades of the 17th century, 25 people named in the records of the small parish of St. Botolph's in Aldgate are identified as "blackamoors." In the period of the war with Spain, between 1588 and 1604, there was an increase in the number of people reaching England from Spanish colonial expeditions in parts of Africa. The English freed many of these captives from enslavement on Spanish ships. They arrived in England largely as a by-product of the slave trade; some were of mixed-race African and Spanish, and became interpreters or sailors. American historian
Ira Berlin Ira Berlin (May 27, 1941 – June 5, 2018) was an American historian, professor of history at the University of Maryland, and former president of Organization of American Historians. Berlin is the author of such books as ''Many Thousands Gone: T ...
classified such persons as
Atlantic Creole Atlantic Creole is a cultural identifier of those with origins in the transatlantic settlement of the Americas via Europe and Africa.John Hawkins John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...
arrived in London with 300 captives from West Africa. However, the slave trade did not become entrenched until the 17th century and Hawkins only embarked on three expeditions.
Jacques Francis Jacques Francis, also known as Jaques Frauncys, ( – after February 1548) was an African salvage diver who led the expedition to salvage King Henry VIII's guns from the ''Mary Rose''. He was the first African to give evidence in 1548 before a cou ...
, who has been described as a slave by some historians, but described himself in Latin as a "''famulus''", meaning servant, slave or attendant. Francis was born on an island off the coast of Guinea, likely
Arguin Island Arguin ( ar, أرغين, pt, Arguim) is an island off the western coast of Mauritania in the Bay of Arguin. It is approximately in size, with extensive and dangerous reefs around it. The island is now part of the Banc d'Arguin National Park. ...
, off the coast of
Mauritania Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...
. He worked as a diver for Pietro Paulo Corsi in his salvage operations on the sunken ''St Mary'' and ''St Edward'' of Southampton and other ships, such as the '' Mary Rose'', which had sunk in Portsmouth Harbour. When Corsi was accused of theft, Francis stood by him in an English court. With help from an interpreter, he supported his master's claims of innocence. Some of the depositions in the case displayed negative attitudes towards slaves or black people as witnesses. In March 2019 two of the skeletons found on the '' Mary Rose'' were found to have Southern European or North African ancestry; one found to be wearing a leather wrist-guard bearing the arms of
Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously ...
and royal arms of England is thought to possibly be Spanish or North African, the other, known as "Henry" was thought to also have similar genetic makeup. Henry’s mitochondrial DNA showed that his ancestry may have came from Southern Europe, the Near East, or North Africa, although Dr Sam Robson from the
University of Portsmouth The University of Portsmouth is a public university in Portsmouth, England. It is one of only four universities in the South East England, South East of England rated as Gold in the Government's Teaching Excellence Framework. With approximately 28 ...
"ruled out" that Henry was black or that he was
sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
n in origin. Dr Onyeka Nubia cautioned that the number of those on board the ''Mary Rose'' that had heritage beyond Britain was not necessarily representative of the whole of England at the time, although it definitely was not a "one-off". It is thought they are likely to have travelled through Spain or Portugal before arriving in Britain. Blackamoor servants were perceived as a fashionable novelty and worked in the households of several prominent Elizabethans, including that of Queen Elizabeth I,
William Pole William Pole FRS FRSE MICE (22 April 181430 December 1900) was an English engineer, astronomer, musician and an authority on Whist. Life He was born in Birmingham on 22 April 1814, the son of Thomas Pole. Pole was apprenticed as an engineer t ...
,
Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (t ...
, and Anne of Denmark in Scotland. Among these servants was "John Come-quick, a blackemore", servant to Capt Thomas Love. Others included in parish registers include Domingo "a black neigro servaunt unto Sir William Winter", buried the xxviith daye of August
587 __NOTOC__ Year 587 ( DLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 587 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calenda ...
and "Frauncis a Blackamoor servant to Thomas Parker", buried in January 1591. Some were free workers, although most were employed as domestic servants and entertainers. Some worked in ports, but were invariably described as chattel labour. The African population may have been several hundred during the Elizabethan period, and historian Michael Wood noted that Africans in England were "mostly free... ndboth men and women, married native English people." Archival evidence shows records of more than 360 African people between 1500 to 1640 in England and Scotland. Reacting to the darker complexion of people with biracial parentage, George Best argued in 1578 that black skin was not related to the heat of the sun (in Africa) but was instead caused by biblical damnation. Reginald Scot later associated black skin with witchcraft, describing (in his book ''Discoverie of Witchcraft'') an unprepossessing devil in 1584 as having "horns on his head, fire in his mouth, a tail, eyes like a bison, fangs like a dog, claws like a bear, ''a skin like a Niger'' and a voice roaring like a lion"; historian Ian Mortimer stated that such views "are to be noted at all levels of society". Views on Black people were "affected by preconceived notions of the
Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan-Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the Bible, biblical paradise described in Book of Genesis, Genes ...
and the Fall from Grace." In addition, in this period, England had no concept of naturalization as a means of incorporating immigrants into the society. It conceived of English subjects as those people born on the island. Those who were not were considered by some to be incapable of becoming subjects or citizens.Taunya Lovell Banks
"Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit – Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth Century Colonial Virginia"
, 41 ''Akron Law Review'' 799 (2008), Digital Commons Law, University of Maryland Law School. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
In 1596, Queen Elizabeth I issued letters to the lord mayors of major cities asserting that "of late divers blackmoores brought into this realm, of which kind of people there are already here to manie...". While visiting the English court,
Casper Van Senden Casper Van Senden was a German merchant who was active in Tudor-era England during the 16th century. Born in the German city of Lübeck, he eventually moved to the English capital of London, a major port at the time. Working as a merchant in Ha ...
, a German merchant from Lübeck, requested the permission to transport "Blackamoores" living in England to Portugal or Spain, presumably to sell them there. Elizabeth subsequently issued a
royal warrant A royal warrant is a document issued by a monarch which confers rights or privileges on the recipient, or has the effect of law. Royal warrant may refer to: * Royal warrant of appointment, warrant to tradespeople who supply goods or services to a r ...
to Van Senden, granting him the right to do so. However, Van Senden and Sherley did not succeed in this effort, as they acknowledged in correspondence with Sir Robert Cecil. In 1601, Elizabeth issued another proclamation expressing that she was "highly discontented to understand the great number of Negroes and blackamoors which (as she is informed) are carried into this realm", and again licensing van Senden to deport them. Her proclamation of 1601 stated that the blackamoors were "fostered and powered here, to the great annoyance of
he queen's He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' i ...
own liege people, that covet the relief, which those people consume". It further stated that "most of them are infidels, having no understanding of Christ or his Gospel". Studies of African people in early modern Britain indicate a minor continuing presence. Such studies include Imtiaz Habib's ''Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible'' (Ashgate, 2008),
Onyeka Onyeka Nubia is a British historian, writer and lecturer. Writing under the pen name Onyeka, his works explore the history of Black British people, and multiculturalism in the United Kingdom. In 2013, he published the non-fiction work '' Blackam ...
's ''Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, Their Presence, Status and Origins'' (Narrative Eye, 2013), Miranda Kaufmann's Oxford DPhil thesis ''Africans in Britain, 1500–1640'', and ''Black Tudors: The Untold Story'' (Oneworld, 2017).


17th and 18th centuries


Slavery and the slave trade

Britain was involved in the tri-continental slave trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas. Many of those involved in British colonial activities, such as ship's captains, colonial officials, merchants, slave traders and
plantation owners A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
brought black slaves as servants back to Britain with them. This caused an increasing black presence in the northern, eastern, and southern areas of London. One of the most famous slaves to attend a sea captain was known as Sambo. He fell ill shortly after arriving in England and was consequently buried in Lancashire. His plaque and gravestone still stand to this day. There were also small numbers of free slaves and seamen from West Africa and South Asia. Many of these people were forced into beggary due to the lack of jobs and racial discrimination. In 1687, a "Moor" was given the freedom of the city of York. He is listed in the freemen's rolls as "John Moore – blacke". He is the only black person to have been found to date in the York rolls. The involvement of merchants from Great Britain in the transatlantic slave trade was the most important factor in the development of the Black British community. These communities flourished in port cities strongly involved in the slave trade, such as Liverpool and Bristol. Some Liverpudlians are able to trace their black heritage in the city back ten generations. Early black settlers in the city included seamen, the mixed-race children of traders sent to be educated in England, servants, and freed slaves. Mistaken references to slaves entering the country after 1722 being deemed to be free men are derived from a source in which 1722 is a misprint for 1772, in turn based on a misunderstanding of the results of the
Somerset case ''Somerset v Stewart'' (177298 ER 499(also known as ''Somersett's case'', ''v. XX Sommersett v Steuart and the Mansfield Judgment)'' is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on En ...
referred to below. As a result, Liverpool is home to Britain's oldest black community, dating at least to the 1730s. By 1795, Liverpool had 62.5 per cent of the European Slave Trade. During this era, Lord Mansfield declared that a slave who fled from his master could not be taken by force in England, nor sold abroad. However, Mansfield was at pains to point out that his ruling did not comment on the legality of slavery itself. This verdict fueled the numbers of Blacks who escaped slavery, and helped send slavery into decline. During this same period, many former American slave soldiers, who had fought on the side of the British in the American Revolutionary War, were resettled as free men in London. They were never awarded pensions, and many of them became poverty-stricken and were reduced to begging on the streets. Reports at the time stated that they "had no prospect of subsisting in this country but by depredations on the public, or by common charity". A sympathetic observer wrote that "great numbers of Blacks and People of Colour, many of them refugees from America and others who have by land or sea been in his Majesty's service were... in great distress." Even towards white loyalists there was little good will to new arrivals from America. Officially, slavery was not legal in England. The Cartwright decision of 1569 resolved that England was "too pure an air for a slave to breathe in". However, black African slaves continued to be bought and sold in England during the eighteenth century. The slavery issue was not legally contested until the
Somerset case ''Somerset v Stewart'' (177298 ER 499(also known as ''Somersett's case'', ''v. XX Sommersett v Steuart and the Mansfield Judgment)'' is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on En ...
of 1772, which concerned James Somersett, a fugitive black slave from Virginia. Lord Chief Justice William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield concluded that Somerset could not be forced to leave England against his will. He later reiterated: "The determinations go no further than that the master cannot by force compel him to go out of the kingdom." Despite the previous rulings, such as the 1706 declaration (which was clarified a year later) by
Lord Chief Justice Holt Sir John Holt (23 December 1642 – 5 March 1710) was an English lawyer who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 17 April 1689 to his death. He is frequently credited with playing a major role in ending the prosecution of witches in Eng ...
on slavery not being legal in Britain, it was often ignored, with slaveowners arguing that the slaves were property and therefore could not be considered people. Slave owner Thomas Papillon was one of many who took his black servant "to be in the nature and quality of my goods and chattel".


Rise in population

Black people lived among whites in London in areas of Mile End, Stepney, Paddington, and St Giles. After Mansfield's ruling many former slaves continued to work for their old masters as paid employees. Between 14,000 and 15,000 (then contemporary estimates) slaves were immediately freed in England. Many of these emancipated individuals became labelled as the "black poor", the black poor were defined as former slave soldiers since emancipated, seafarers, such as South Asian lascars, former indentured servants and former indentured plantation workers.File, Nigel, and Chris Power (1981), ''Black Settlers in Britain 1555–1958'', Heinemann Educational. Around the 1750s, London became the home to many Blacks, as well as Jews, Irish, Germans and Huguenots. According to Gretchen Gerzina in her ''Black London'', by the mid-18th century, Blacks accounted for somewhere between 1% to 3% of the London populace. Evidence of the number of Black residents in the city has been found through registered burials. Some black people in London resisted slavery through escape. Leading Black activists of this era included Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho and Quobna Ottobah Cugoano. Mixed race Dido Elizabeth Belle who was born a slave in the Caribbean moved to Britain with her white father in the 1760s. In 1764, '' The Gentleman's Magazine'' reported that there was "supposed to be near 20,000 Negroe servants."
John Ystumllyn John Ystumllyn (born c. 1738, died 1786), also colloquially known as Jac Du or Jack Black, was an 18th-century gardener and the first well-recorded black person of North Wales. John was of uncertain origin, possibly a victim of the Atlantic sla ...
(c. 1738 - 1786) was the first well-recorded black person of North Wales. He may have been a victim of the
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
, and was from either West Africa or the West Indies. He was taken by the Wynn family to their
Ystumllyn Ystumllyn is a Grade II* listed house in Criccieth, Wales. Founded in the late-16th-century, and significantly expanded in the early-18th-century, it is remarkable as an "important example" of the vernacular architecture of both periods. His ...
estate in Criccieth, and christened with the Welsh name John Ystumllyn. He was taught English and
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
by the locals, became a gardener at the estate and "grew into a handsome and vigorous young man". His portrait was painted in 1750s. He married local woman Margaret Gruffydd in 1768 and their descendants still live in the area. It was reported in the Morning Gazette that there was 30,000 in the country as a whole, though the numbers were thought to be "alarmist" exaggerations. In the same year, a party for black men and women in a
Fleet Street Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was na ...
pub was sufficiently unusual to be written about in the newspapers. Their presence in the country was striking enough to start heated outbreaks of distaste for ''colonies of Hottentots''. Modern historians estimate, based on parish lists, baptismal and marriage registers as well as criminal and sales contracts, that about 10,000 black people lived in Britain during the 18th century. Other estimates put the number at 15,000. In 1772, Lord Mansfield put the number of black people in the country at as many as 15,000, though most modern historians consider 10,000 to be the most likely. The black population was estimated at around 10,000 in London, making black people approximately 1% of the overall London population. The black population constituted around 0.1% of the total population of Britain in 1780. The black female population is estimated to have barely reached 20% of the overall Afro-Caribbean population in the country. In the 1780s with the end of the American Revolutionary War, hundreds of black loyalists from America were resettled in Britain. Later some emigrated to Sierra Leone, with help from
Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
after suffering destitution, to form the Sierra Leone Creole ethnic identity., originally published by Longman & Dalhousie University Press (1976).


Discrimination

In 1731 the Lord Mayor of London ruled that "no Negroes shall be bound apprentices to any Tradesman or Artificer of this City". Due to this ruling, most were forced into working as domestic servants and other menial professions. Those black Londoners who were unpaid servants were in effect slaves in anything but name. In 1787, Thomas Clarkson, an English abolitionist, noted at a speech in Manchester: "I was surprised also to find a great crowd of black people standing round the pulpit. There might be forty or fifty of them." There is evidence that black men and women were occasionally discriminated against when dealing with the law because of their skin colour. In 1737, George Scipio was accused of stealing Anne Godfrey's washing, the case rested entirely on whether or not Scipio was the only black man in Hackney at the time.
Ignatius Sancho Charles Ignatius Sancho ( – 14 December 1780) was a British abolitionist, writer and composer. Born on a slave ship in the Atlantic, Sancho was sold into slavery in the Spanish colony of New Granada. After his parents died, Sancho's owner t ...
, black writer, composer, shopkeeper and voter in Westminster wrote, that despite being in Britain since the age of two he felt he was "only a lodger, and hardly that." Sancho complained of "the national antipathy and prejudice" of native white Britons "towards their wooly headed brethren." Sancho was frustrated that many resorted to stereotyping their black neighbours. A financially independent householder, he became the first black person of African origin to vote in parliamentary elections in Britain, in a time when only 3% of the British population were allowed to vote. Sailors of African descent experienced far less prejudice compared to blacks in the cities such as London. Black sailors would have shared the same quarters, duties and pay as their white shipmates. There are some disputes in the estimation of black sailors, conservative estimates put it between 6% and 8% of navy sailors of the time, this proportion is considerably larger than the population as a whole. Notable examples are Olaudah Equiano and
Francis Barber Francis Barber ( – 13 January 1801), born Quashey, was the Jamaican manservant of Samuel Johnson in London from 1752 until Johnson's death in 1784. Johnson made him his residual heir, with £70 () a year to be given him by Trustees, express ...
.


Abolitionism

With the support of other Britons, these activists demanded that Blacks be freed from slavery. Supporters involved in these movements included workers and other nationalities of the urban poor. Black people in London who were supporters of the abolitionist movement include Cugoano and Equiano. At this time, slavery in Britain itself had no support from common law, but its definitive legal status was not clearly defined until the 19th century.


Oloudah Equiano

During the late 18th century, numerous publications and memoirs were written about the "black poor". One example is the writings of Equiano, a former slave who became an unofficial spokesman for Britain's Black community. His memoir about his life entitled '' The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano''. In 1786, Olaudah Equiano became the first black person to be employed by the British government, when he was made Commissary of Provisions and Stores for the 350 black people suffering from poverty who had decided to accept the government's offer of an assisted passage to Sierra Leone. The following year, in 1787, encouraged by the
Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
, about 400 black Londoners were aided in emigrating to Sierra Leone in West Africa, founding the first British colony on the continent. They asked that their status as
British subject The term "British subject" has several different meanings depending on the time period. Before 1949, it referred to almost all subjects of the British Empire (including the United Kingdom, Dominions, and colonies, but excluding protectorates ...
s be recognized, along with requests that they be given military protection by the Royal Navy. However, even though the committee signed up about 700 members of the Black Poor, only 441 boarded the three ships that set sail from London to Portsmouth. Many black Londoners were no longer interested in the scheme, and the coercion employed by the committee and the government to recruit them only reinforced their opposition. Equiano, who was originally involved in the scheme, became one of its most vocal critics. Another prominent black Londoner,
Ottobah Cugoano Ottobah Cugoano, also known as John Stuart (c. 1757 – after 1791), was an abolitionist, political activist, and natural rights philosopher from West Africa who was active in Britain in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Captured in th ...
, also criticised the scheme.


Ancestry

In 2007, scientists found the rare paternal
haplogroup A1 Haplogroup A-P305 also known as A1 is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. Like its parent haplogroup haplogroup A0-T (A-L1085), A1 includes the vast majority of living human males. It emerged in Africa approximately 161,300 years ago. By compa ...
in a few living British men with Yorkshire surnames. This clade is today almost exclusively found among males in West Africa, where it is also rare. The haplogroup is thought to have been brought to Britain either through enlisted soldiers during Roman Britain, or much later via the modern slave trade. Turi King, a co-author on the study, noted the most probable "guess" was the West African slave trade. Some of the known individuals who arrived through the slave route, such as Ignatius Sancho and Olaudah Equiano, attained a very high social rank. Some married into the general population.


19th century

In the late 18th century, the British slave trade declined in response to changing popular opinion. Both Great Britain and the United States abolished the
Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
in 1808, and cooperated in liberating slaves from illegal trading ships off the coast of West Africa. Many of these freed slaves were taken to Sierra Leone for settlement. Slavery was abolished completely in the British Empire by 1834, although it had been profitable on Caribbean plantations. Fewer blacks were brought into London from the West Indies and West Africa. The resident British black population, primarily male, was no longer growing from the trickle of slaves and servants from the West Indies and America. Abolition meant a virtual halt to the arrival of black people to Britain, just as immigration from Europe was increasing. The black population of Victorian Britain was so small that those living outside of larger trading ports were isolated from the black population. The mentioning of black people and descendants in parish registers declined markedly in the early 19th century. It is possible that researchers simply did not collect the data or that the mostly black male population of the late 18th century had married white women. Evidence of such marriages may still be found today with descendants of black servants such as Francis Barber, a Jamaican-born servant who lived in Britain during the 18th century. His descendants still live in England today and are white. Abolition of slavery in 1833, effectively ended the period of small-scale black immigration to London and Britain. Though, there were some exceptions, black and Chinese seamen began putting down the roots of small communities in British ports, not least because they were abandoned there by their employers. By the late 19th century, race discrimination was furthered by theories of scientific racism, which held that whites were the superior race and that blacks were less intelligent than whites. Attempts to support these theories cited 'scientific evidence', such as brain size. James Hunt, President of the London Anthropological Society, in 1863 in his paper "On the Negro's place in nature" wrote,"the Negro is inferior intellectually to the European... ndcan only be humanised and civilised by Europeans." In the 1880s, there was a build-up of small groups of black dockside communities in towns such as
Canning Town Canning Town is a district in the London Borough of Newham, East London. The district is located to the north of the Royal Victoria Dock, and has been described as the "Child of the Victoria Docks" as the timing and nature of its urbanisation ...
, Liverpool and Cardiff. Despite social prejudice and discrimination in Victorian England, some 19th-century black Britons achieved exceptional success. Pablo Fanque, born poor as William Darby in Norwich, rose to become the proprietor of one of Britain's most successful Victorian circuses. He is immortalised in the lyrics of The Beatles song " Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" Thirty years after his 1871 death, the chaplain of the Showman's Guild said:
"In the great brotherhood of the equestrian world there is no colour line ar for, although Pablo Fanque was of African extraction, he speedily made his way to the top of his profession. The camaraderie of the ring has but one test – ability."
Another great circus performer was equestrian Joseph Hillier, who took over and ran
Andrew Ducrow Andrew Ducrow (1793–1842) was a British circus performer, often called "Colossus of equestrians". He was the originator of horsemanship acts and proprietor of Astley's Amphitheatre and remains one of the few giants of equestrian drama whose na ...
's circus company after Ducrow died. From the early part of the century, students of African descent were admitted to British Universities. One such student, for example, was the African American James McCune Smith who travelled from New York City to Glasgow University to study medicine. In 1837 he was awarded a medical doctorate and published two scientific articles in the ''London Medical Gazette''. These articles are the first known to be published by an African American medical doctor in a scientific journal. An Indian Briton,
Dadabhai Naoroji Dadabhai Naoroji (4 September 1825 – 30 June 1917) also known as the "Grand Old Man of India" and "Unofficial Ambassador of India", was an Indian political leader, merchant, scholar and writer who served as 2nd, 9th, and 22nd President of t ...
, stood for election to parliament for the Liberal Party in 1886. He was defeated, leading the leader of the Conservative Party, Lord Salisbury to remark that "however great the progress of mankind has been, and however far we have advanced in overcoming prejudices, I doubt if we have yet got to the point of view where a British constituency would elect a Blackman". Naoroji was elected to parliament in 1892, becoming the second Member of Parliament (MP) of Indian descent after
David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre (18 December 1808 – 1 July 1851), also known as D. O. Dyce Sombre and David Dyce Sombre, was an Anglo-Indian held to be the first person of Asian descent to be elected to the British Parliament. He was elected to ...
.


20th century


Early 20th century

According to the Sierra Leonean barrister and writer,
Augustus Merriman-Labor Augustus Boyle Chamberlayne Merriman‐Labor, who later took the name Ohlohr Maigi (1877-1919) was a Sierra Leonean barrister, writer and munitions worker. He is best known for his 1909 book ''Britons Through Negro Spectacles'', an introduction to L ...
, in his 1909 book ''Britons Through Negro Spectacles'', London's Black population at the time did "not much exceed one hundred" people and "To every one
lack person in London Lack may refer to: Places * Lack, County Fermanagh, a townland in Northern Ireland * Lack, Poland * Łąck, Poland * Lack Township, Juniata County, Pennsylvania, US Other uses * Lack (surname) * Lack (manque), a term in Lacan's psychoanalyti ...
there are over sixty thousand whites". World War I saw a small growth in the size of London's Black communities with the arrival of merchant seamen and soldiers. At that time, there were also small groups of students from Africa and the Caribbean migrating into London. These communities are now among the oldest black communities of London. The largest Black communities were to be found in the United Kingdom's great port cities: London's
East End The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...
, Liverpool, Bristol and Cardiff's
Tiger Bay Tiger Bay ( cy, Bae Teigr) was the local name for an area of Cardiff which covered Butetown and Cardiff Docks. Following the building of the Cardiff Barrage, which dams the tidal rivers, Ely and Taff, to create a body of water, it is re ...
, with other communities in
South Shields South Shields () is a coastal town in South Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the south bank of the mouth of the River Tyne. Historically, it was known in Roman times as Arbeia, and as Caer Urfa by Early Middle Ages. According to the 20 ...
in
Tyne & Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcas ...
and Glasgow. In 1914, the black population was estimated at 10,000 and centred largely in London. By 1918 there may have been as many as 20,000 or 30,000 black people living in Britain. However, the black population was much smaller relative to the total British population of 45 million and official documents were not adapted to record ethnicity. Black residents had for the most part emigrated from parts of the British Empire. The number of black soldiers serving in the British army, (rather than colonial regiments,) prior to World War I is unknown but was likely to have been negligibly low. One of the Black British soldiers during World War I was Walter Tull, an English professional footballer, born to a Barbadian carpenter Daniel Tull and Kent-born Alice Elizabeth Palmer. His grandfather was a slave in Barbados. Tull became the first British-born mixed-heritage infantry officer in a regular British Army regiment, despite the 1914 Manual of Military Law specifically excluding soldiers that were not "of pure European descent" from becoming commissioned officers. Colonial soldiers and sailors of Afro-Caribbean descent served in the United Kingdom during the First World War and some settled in British cities. The South Shields community—which also included other "coloured" seamen known as lascars, who were from South Asia and the Arab world—were victims of the UK's first
race riot This is a list of ethnic riots by country, and includes riots based on ethnic, sectarian, xenophobic, and racial conflict. Some of these riots can also be classified as pogroms. Africa Americas United States Nativist period: 1700s ...
in 1919. Soon eight other cities with significant non-white communities were also hit by race riots. Due to these disturbances, many of the residents from the Arab world as well as some other immigrants were evacuated to their homelands. In that first postwar summer, other racial riots of whites against "coloured" peoples also took place in numerous United States cities, towns in the Caribbean, and South Africa.Dr. Laura Tabili
"Review of Jacqueline Jenkinson, ''Black 1919: Riots, Racism and Resistance in Imperial Britain''
, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009, ", ''Reviews in History'' website. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
They were part of the social dislocation after the war as societies struggled to integrate veterans into the work forces again, and groups competed for jobs and housing. At Australian insistence, the British refused to accept the
Racial Equality Proposal The was an amendment to the Treaty of Versailles that was considered at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Proposed by Japan, it was never intended to have any universal implications, but one was attached to it anyway, which caused its controversy. ...
put forward by the Japanese at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919.


World War II

World War II marked another period of growth for the Black communities in London, Liverpool and elsewhere in Britain. Many Blacks from the Caribbean and West Africa arrived in small groups as wartime workers, merchant seamen, and servicemen from the army, navy, and air forces. For example, in February 1941, 345 West Indians came to work in factories in and around Liverpool, making munitions. By the end of 1943, there were 3,312 African-American GIs based at
Maghull Maghull ( ) is a town and civil parish in Sefton, Merseyside (historically a part of Lancashire). The town is north of Liverpool and west of Kirkby. The area also contains Ashworth Hospital. Maghull had a population of 20,444 at the 2011 Census ...
and Huyton, near Liverpool. The Black population in the summer of 1944 was estimated at 150,000, mostly Black GIs from the United States. However, by 1948 the Black population was estimated to have been less than 20,000 and did not reach the previous peak of 1944 until 1958.
Learie Constantine Learie Nicholas Constantine, Baron Constantine, (21 September 19011 July 1971) was a West Indian cricketer, lawyer and politician who served as Trinidad and Tobago's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and became the UK's first black pe ...
, a West Indian cricketer, was a welfare officer with the
Ministry of Labour The Ministry of Labour ('' UK''), or Labor ('' US''), also known as the Department of Labour, or Labor, is a government department responsible for setting labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, training, a ...
when he was refused service at a London hotel. He sued for
breach of contract Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party ...
and was awarded damages. This particular example is used by some to illustrate the slow change from racism towards acceptance and equality of all citizens in London.


Post-war

In 1950, there were probably fewer than 20,000 non-White residents in Britain, almost all born overseas. After World War II, the largest influx of Black people occurred, mostly from the British West Indies. Over a quarter of a million West Indians, the overwhelming majority of them from Jamaica, settled in Britain in less than a decade. In 1951, the population of Caribbean and African-born people in Britain was estimated at 20,900. In the mid-1960s, Britain had become the centre of the largest overseas population of West Indians.Procter, James (ed.), ''Writing Black Britain 1948–1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology'', Manchester University Press, 2000. This migration event is often labelled "Windrush", a reference to the , the ship that carried the first major group of Caribbean migrants to the United Kingdom in 1948. "Caribbean" is itself not one ethnic or political identity; for example, some of this wave of immigrants were
Indo-Caribbean Indo-Caribbeans or Indian-Caribbeans are Indian people in the Caribbean who are descendants of the Jahaji Indian indentured laborers brought by the British, Dutch, and French during the colonial era from the mid-19th century to the early 20th c ...
. The most widely used term used at that time was '' West Indian'' (or sometimes ''coloured''). ''Black British'' did not come into widespread use until the second generation were born to these post-war migrants to the UK. Although British by nationality, due to friction between them and the White majority they were often born into communities that were relatively closed, creating the roots of what would become a distinct
Black British identity Black British identity is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as a black British person and as relating to being black British. Researched and discussed across a wide variety of mediums; the identity usually interesects with, a ...
. By the 1950s, there was a consciousness of Black people as a separate group that had not been there between 1932-38. The increasing consciousness of Black British peoples was deeply informed by the influx of Black American culture imported by Black servicemen during and after World War II, music being a central example of what Jacqueline Nassy-Brown calls "diasporic resources". These close interactions between Americans and Black British were not only material but also inspired the expatriation of some Black British women to America after marrying servicemen (some of whom later repatriated to the UK).


Late 20th century

In 1961, the population of people born in Africa or the Caribbean was estimated at 191,600, just under 0.4% of the total UK population. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed in Britain along with a succession of other laws in
1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...
,
1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events Ja ...
and
1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...
, which severely restricted the entry of Black immigrants into Britain. During this period it is widely argued that emergent blacks and Asians struggled in Britain against racism and prejudice. During the 1970s—and partly in response to both the rise in racial intolerance and the rise of the Black Power movement abroad—''black'' became detached from its negative connotations, and was reclaimed as a marker of pride: black is beautiful. In 1975, David Pitt was appointed to the House of Lords. He spoke against racism and for equality in regards to all residents of Britain. In the years that followed, several Black members were elected into the British Parliament. By 1981, the black population in the United Kingdom was estimated at 1.2% of all countries of birth, being 0.8% Black-Caribbean, 0.3% Black-Other, and 0.1% Black-African residents. Since the 1980s, the majority of black immigrants into the country have come directly from Africa, in particular, Nigeria and Ghana in West Africa, Uganda and Kenya in East Africa, Zimbabwe, and South Africa in Southern Africa. Nigerians and Ghanaians have been especially quick to accustom themselves to British life, with young Nigerians and Ghanaians achieving some of the best results at
GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...
and
A-Level The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational aut ...
, often on a par or above the performance of white pupils. The rate of
inter-racial marriage Interracial marriage is a marriage involving spouses who belong to different races or racialized ethnicities. In the past, such marriages were outlawed in the United States, Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa as miscegenation. In 196 ...
between British citizens born in Africa and native Britons is still fairly low, compared to those from the Caribbean. By the end of the 20th century the number of black Londoners numbered half a million, according to the
1991 census A nationwide census, commonly known as Census 1991, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday 21 April 1991. This was the 19th UK census. ''Census 1991'' was organised by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys in England and Wales, th ...
. The 1991 census was the first to include a question on ethnicity, and the black population of Great Britain (i.e. the United Kingdom excluding Northern Ireland, where the question was not asked) was recorded as 890,727, or 1.6% of the total population. This figure included 499,964 people in the Black-Caribbean category (0.9%), 212,362 in the Black-African category (0.4%) and 178,401 in the Black-Other category (0.3%). An increasing number of black Londoners were London- or British-born. Even with this growing population and the first blacks elected to Parliament, many argue that there was still discrimination and a socio-economic imbalance in London among the blacks. In 1992, the number of blacks in Parliament increased to six, and in 1997, they increased their numbers to nine. There are still many problems that black Londoners face; the new global and high-tech information revolution is changing the urban economy and some argue that it is driving up unemployment rates among blacks relative to non-blacks, something, it is argued, that threatens to erode the progress made thus far. By 2001, the Black British population was recorded at 1,148,738 (2.0%) in the 2001 census.


Street conflicts and policing

The late 1950s through to the late 1980s saw a number of mass street conflicts involving young Afro-Caribbean men and British police officers in English cities, mostly as a result of tensions between members of local black communities and whites. The first major incident occurred in 1958 in Notting Hill, when roaming gangs of between 300 and 400 white youths attacked Afro-Caribbeans and their houses across the neighbourhood, leading to a number of Afro-Caribbean men being left unconscious in the streets. The following year, Antigua-born
Kelso Cochrane Kelso may refer to: Places Australia * Kelso, New South Wales * Kelso, Tasmania * Kelso, Queensland Canada * Kelso Conservation Area, Ontario, containing Lake Kelso ** Kelso, a village in Regional Municipality of Halton, Ontario New Zealand *Kels ...
died after being set upon and stabbed by a gang of white youths while walking home to Notting Hill. During the 1970s, police forces across England increasingly began to use the
Sus law In England and Wales, the sus law (from "suspected person") was a stop and search law that permitted a police officer to stop, search and potentially arrest people on suspicion of them being in breach of section 4 of the Vagrancy Act 1824. Acc ...
, provoking a sense that young black men were being discriminated against by the police The next newsworthy outbreak of street fighting occurred in 1976 at the
Notting Hill Carnival The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean festival event that has taken place in London since 1966
when several hundred police officers and youths became involved in televised fights and scuffles, with stones thrown at police, baton charges and a number of minor injuries and arrests. The
1980 St. Pauls riot The St Pauls riot occurred in St Pauls, Bristol, England on 2 April 1980 when police raided the Black and White Café on Grosvenor Road in the heart of the area. After several hours of disturbance in which fire engines and police cars were damag ...
in Bristol saw fighting between local youths and police officers, resulting in numerous minor injuries, damage to property and arrests. In London, 1981 brought further conflict, with a perceived racist police force after the death of 13 black youngsters who were attending a birthday party that ended in the devastating
New Cross Fire The New Cross house fire was a conflagration, fire that occurred during a party at a house in New Cross, south-east London, in the early hours of Sunday, 18 January 1981. The blaze killed 13 young black people aged between 14 and 22, and one su ...
. The fire was viewed by many as a racist massacre and a major political demonstration, known as the
Black People's Day of Action The New Cross house fire was a fire that occurred during a party at a house in New Cross, south-east London, in the early hours of Sunday, 18 January 1981. The blaze killed 13 young black people aged between 14 and 22, and one survivor took his ...
was held to protest against the attacks themselves, a perceived rise in racism, and perceived hostility and indifference from the police, politicians and media. Tensions were further inflamed when, in nearby
Brixton Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...
, police launched operation Swamp 81, a series of mass stop-and-searches of young black men. Anger erupted when up to 500 people were involved in street fighting between the
Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
and local Afro-Caribbean community, leading to a number of cars and shops being set on fire, stones thrown at police and hundreds of arrests and minor injuries. A similar pattern occurred further north in England that year, in Toxteth, Liverpool, and Chapeltown, Leeds. Despite the recommendations of the Scarman Report (published in November 1981), relations between black youths and police did not significantly improve and a further wave of nationwide conflicts occurred in Handsworth, Birmingham, in 1985, when the local
South Asian South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, ...
community also became involved. Following the police shooting of a black grandmother Cherry Groce in Brixton, and the death of
Cynthia Jarrett The Broadwater Farm riot occurred on the Broadwater council estate in Tottenham, North London, on 6 October 1985. The events of the day were dominated by two deaths. The first was that of Cynthia Jarrett, an Afro-Caribbean woman who died the p ...
during a raid on her home in Tottenham, in north London, protests held at the local police stations did not end peacefully and further street battles with the police erupted, the disturbances later spreading to Manchester's Moss Side. The street battles themselves (involving more stone-throwing, the discharge of one firearm, and several fires) led to two fatalities (in the Broadwater Farm riot) and Brixton. In 1999, following the Macpherson Inquiry into the 1993 killing of Stephen Lawrence, Sir
Paul Condon Paul Leslie Condon, Baron Condon, (born 10 March 1947) is a British retired police officer. He was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1993 to 2000. Education Condon read Jurisprudence at St Peter's College, Oxford and was made ...
, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, accepted that his organisation was
institutionally racist Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health ...
. Some members of the Black British community were involved in the
2001 Harehills race riot The Harehills riot took place in the multi-ethnic Leeds district of Harehills (West Yorkshire, England) in 2001. The riot occurred after the alleged wrongful arrest of an Asian man by the West Yorkshire Police which was alleged to have been ...
and
2005 Birmingham race riots The Birmingham riots of 2005 occurred on two consecutive nights on Saturday 22 October and Sunday 23 October 2005 in the Lozells and Handsworth area of Birmingham, England. The riots were derived from ethnic tensions between the Caribbean and B ...
.


Early 21st century

In 2011, following the shooting of a mixed-race man,
Mark Duggan Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Finn ...
, by police in Tottenham, a protest was held at the local police station. The protest ended with an outbreak of fighting between local youths and police officers leading to widespread disturbances across
English cities City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the monarch of the United Kingdom to a select group of communities. , there are 76 cities in the United Kingdom—55 in England, seven in Wales, eight in Scotland, and six in Northern Irelan ...
. Some analysts claimed that black people were disproportionally represented in the
2011 England riots The 2011 England riots, more widely known as the London riots, were a series of riots between 6 and 11 August 2011. Thousands of people rioted in cities and towns across England, which saw looting, arson, as well as mass deployment of police ...
. Research suggests that race relations in Britain deteriorated in the period following the riots and that prejudice towards ethnic minorities increased. Groups such as the EDL and the BNP were said to be exploiting the situation. Racial tensions between blacks and Asians in Birmingham increased after the deaths of three Asian men at the hands of a black youth. In a '' Newsnight'' discussion on 12 August 2011, historian David Starkey blamed black gangster and rap culture, saying that it had influenced youths of all races. Figures showed that 46 per cent of people brought before a courtroom for arrests related to the 2011 riots were black. During the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the United Kingdom, it has resulted in confir ...
the first ten healthcare workers to die from the virus came from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, prompting the head of the
British Medical Association The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association's headquar ...
to call on the government to begin investigating if and why minorities are being disproportionally affected. Early statistics found that black and Asian people were being affected worse than white people, with figures showing 35% of COVID-19 patients were non-white, and similar studies in the US had shown a clear racial disparity. The government announced that they will be launching an official inquiry into the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities with Communities Minister Robert Jenrick acknowledging that ''"There does appear to be a disproportionate impact of the virus on BAME communities in the UK."'' A social media campaign in response to the Clap for our Carers campaign, highlighted the role Black & minority health and key workers and asking the public to continue their support after the pandemic gained over 12 million views online. 72 per cent of NHS Staff that died from Covid-19 were reported as being from Black & Minority Ethnic groups, far higher than the number of staff from BAME backgrounds working in the NHS which stood at 44%. Statistics did show that black people were significantly over-represented, but that as the pandemic progressed the disparity in these figures was reducing. Reports discussed a number of complex contributing factors including health and income inequality, social and environmental factors were exacerbating and contributing to the spread of the disease unequally. In April 2020 after his sister's partner died from the virus,
Patrick Vernon Patrick Philip Vernon (born 1961)"Patrick Vernon"
, Sankofa 2013: Teachers' R ...
set up a fundraising initiative called "The Majonzi Fund" which will provide families with access to small financial grants that can be used to access bereavement counselling and organise memorial events and tributes after the social lockdown has been lifted.


Demographics


Population

According to the
2021 United Kingdom census The decennial 2021 censuses of England and Wales and of Northern Ireland took place on 21 March 2021, and the census of Scotland took place on 20 March 2022. The censuses were administered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in England an ...
, those identifying as Black British in England & Wales enumerated 2,409,278, or 4.0% of the population The 2011 UK Census recorded 1,904,684 residents who identified as "Black/African/Caribbean/Black British", accounting for 3 per cent of the total UK population. This was the first UK census where the number of self-reported Black African residents exceeded that of Black Caribbeans. Within England and Wales, 989,628 individuals specified their ethnicity as "Black African", 594,825 as "Black Caribbean", and 280,437 as "Other Black". In Northern Ireland, 2,345 individuals self-reported as "Black African", 372 as "Black Caribbean", and 899 as "Other Black", totaling 3,616 "Black" residents. In Scotland, 29,638 persons identified themselves as "African", choosing either the "African, African Scottish or African British" tick box or the "Other African" tick box and write-in area. 6,540 individuals also self-reported as "Caribbean or Black", selecting either the "Caribbean, Caribbean Scottish or Caribbean British" tick box, the "Black, Black Scottish or Black British" tick box, or the "Other Caribbean or Black" tick box and write-in area. In order to compare UK-wide results, the Office for National Statistics combined the "African" and "Caribbean or Black" entries at the top-level, and reported a total of 36,178 "Black" residents in Scotland. According to the ONS, individuals in Scotland with "Other African", "White" and "Asian" ethnicities as well as "Black" identities could thus all potentially be captured within this combined output. The General Register Office for Scotland, which devised the categories and administers the Scotland census, does not combine the "African" and "Caribbean or Black" entries, maintaining them as separate for individuals who do not self-identify as "Black" (see census classification). In the 2001 Census, 575,876 people in the United Kingdom had reported their ethnicity as "Black Caribbean", 485,277 as "Black African", and 97,585 as "Black Other", making a total of 1,148,738 "Black or Black British" residents. This was equivalent to 2 per cent of the UK population at the time.


Population distribution

Most Black Britons can be found in the large cities and metropolitan areas of the country. The 2011 census found that 1.85 million of a total Black population of 1.9 million lived in England, with 1.09 million of those in London, where they made up 13.3 per cent of the population, compared to 3.5 per cent of England's population and 3 per cent of the UK's population. The ten local authorities with the highest proportion of their populations describing themselves as Black in the census were all in London: Lewisham (27.2 per cent),
Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
(26.9 per cent),
Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area expe ...
(25.9 per cent), Hackney (23.1 per cent), Croydon (20.2 per cent), Barking and Dagenham (20.0 per cent), Newham (19.6 per cent), Greenwich (19.1 per cent), Haringey (18.8 per cent) and Brent (18.8 per cent). More specifically, for Black Africans the highest local authority was Southwark (16.4 per cent) followed by Barking and Dagenham (15.4 per cent) and Greenwich (13.8 per cent), whereas for Black Caribbeans the highest was Lewisham (11.2 per cent) followed by Lambeth (9.5 per cent) and Croydon (8.6%). Outside of London, the next largest populations are in Birmingham (96,360, 9%) / Wolverhampton (17,309, 6.9%), Manchester (43,484, 8.6%), Leeds (25,893, 3.5%), Bristol (25,734, 6%), Reading, Berkshire (22,921, 6.7%), Nottingham (22,185, 7.3%),
Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...
(20,585, 6.2%), Sheffield (20,082, 3.6%) and Luton (19,909, 9.8%).


Mixed marriages

An academic journal article published in 2005, citing sources from 1997 and 2001, estimated that nearly half of British-born
African-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...
men, a third of British-born African-Caribbean women, and a fifth of
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
men, have white partners. In 2014, '' The Economist'' reported that, according to the Labour Force Survey, 48 per cent of black Caribbean men and 34 per cent of black Caribbean women in couples have partners from a different ethnic group. Moreover, mixed-race children under the age of ten with black Caribbean and white parents outnumber black Caribbean children by two-to-one.


Culture and community


Dialect

Multicultural London English is a variety of the English language spoken by a large number of the Black British population of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. British Black dialect has been influenced by Jamaican Patois owing to the large number of immigrants from Jamaica, but it is also spoken or imitated by those of different ancestry. British Black speech is also heavily influenced by social class and regional dialect ( Cockney,
Mancunian Mancunian is the associated adjective and demonym of Manchester, a city in North West England. It may refer to: *Anything from or related to the city of Manchester or the county of Greater Manchester, in particular: **The people of Manchester (see ...
, Brummie, Scouse, etc.). African-born immigrants speak African languages and
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
as well as English.


Music

Black British music is a long-established and influential part of
British music Throughout the history of the British Isles, the United Kingdom has been a major music producer, drawing inspiration from Church Music. Traditional folk music, using instruments of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Each of the ...
. Its presence in the United Kingdom stretches back to the 18th century, encompassing concert performers such as George Bridgetower and
street musicians Street performance or busking is the act of performing in public places for gratuities. In many countries, the rewards are generally in the form of money but other gratuities such as food, drink or gifts may be given. Street performance is pr ...
the likes of Billy Waters. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912) achieved great success as a composer at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Jazz Age also had taken an effect on the generation. In the late 1970s and 1980s,
2 Tone Two-tone, two tone, or 2 tone, etc., may refer to: Audio and sound * Two-tone analysis, in nonlinear system measurement * Two-tone attention signal * Two-tone chime, such as the "ding dong" sound of a doorbell * Two-tone sequential paging, sel ...
became popular with the British youth; especially in the
West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
. A blend of punk, ska and
pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' (G ...
made it a favourite among both white and black audiences. Famous bands in the genre include the Selecter, the Specials, the Beat and the Bodysnatchers. Jungle, dubstep,
drum and bass Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...
, UK garage and grime music originated in London and involve a number of artists from primarily Caribbean communities but recently Black Africans also, most notably of Ghanaian and Nigerian origin. Famous grime artists include Dizzee Rascal,
Tinchy Stryder Kwasi Esono Danquah III ( ; born 14 September 1986), known by the stage name Tinchy Stryder, is a Ghanaian British, Ghanaian-British rapper, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and investor. Stryder has released three solo (music), solo studio al ...
, Tinie Tempah, Chipmunk, Kano, Wiley and Lethal Bizzle. It is now common to hear British
MCs Music * Motion City Soundtrack, a pop punk / rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota Science and technology * Matrix cable system, submarine communications cable connecting Indonesia and Singapore * Megawatt Charging System, electric vehicle cha ...
rapping in a strong London accent.
Niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development *Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ecology, the ...
, with its origin in Sheffield and Leeds, has a much faster bassline and is often sung in a Northern accent. Famous niche artists include producer T2. The MOBO Awards – recognizing performers of "Music of Black Origin" – are seen as a UK equivalent to the BET Awards and
Soul Train Awards The Soul Train Music Awards is an annual music awards show which previously aired in national broadcast syndication, and honors the best in African-American culture, music and entertainment. It is produced by the makers of ''Soul Train'', the pro ...
for being the main award show in Britain to focus on urban music. Among Black British artists to have gained significant popularity in the U.S. are
Sade Sade may refer to: People * Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), French aristocrat, writer, and libertine * Sade (singer) (born 1959, Helen Folasade Adu), British Nigerian musician and lead singer of the eponymous band * Sade Baderinwa (born 1969), WAB ...
(" Paradise"), Seal (" Kiss from a Rose"), Soul II Soul (" Back to Life"), Des'ree (" You Gotta Be") and Loose Ends (" Hangin' on a String").


Media

The black community in Britain has a number of significant publications. The leading key publication is '' The Voice'' newspaper, founded by
Val McCalla Val Irvine McCalla (3 October 1943 – 22 August 2002) was a Jamaican accountant and media entrepreneur who settled in Britain in 1959. He is best known as the founder of ''The Voice'', a British weekly newspaper aimed at the Britain's black com ...
in 1982, and Britain's only national Black weekly newspaper. ''The Voice'' primarily targets the Caribbean diaspora and has been printed for more than 35 years. Secondly, the ''Black History Month'' magazine is a central point of focus which leads the nationwide celebration of Black History, Arts and Culture throughout the UK. ''
Pride Magazine ''Pride Magazine'' is a magazine targeting Black British, mixed-race, African and African-Caribbean women in the United Kingdom. This lifestyle magazine has been in publication since 1991. The magazine has a circulation of more than 30,000 copie ...
'', published since 1991, is the largest monthly magazine that targets black British, mixed-race, African and African-Caribbean women in the United Kingdom. In 2007, '' The Guardian'' reported that the magazine had dominated the black women's magazine market for over 15 years. ''Keep The Faith'' magazine is a multi-award winning Black and minority ethnic community magazine produced quarterly since 2005. ''Keep The Faith''s editorial contributors are some of the most powerful and influential movers and shakers, and successful entrepreneurs within BME communities. Many major Black British publications are handled through Diverse Media Group, which specialises in helping organisations reach Britain's Black and minority ethnic community through the main media they consume. The senior leadership team is a composite of many CEO and owners from the publications listed above.


Social issues


Racism

The wave of black immigrants who arrived in Britain from the
Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
in the 1950s faced significant amounts of racism. For many Caribbean immigrants, their first experience of discrimination came when trying to find private accommodation. They were generally ineligible for
council housing Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...
because only people who had been resident in the UK for a minimum of five years qualified for it. At the time, there was no anti-discrimination legislation to prevent landlords from refusing to accept black tenants. A survey undertaken in Birmingham in 1956 found that only 15 of a total of 1,000 white people surveyed would let a room to a black tenant. As a result, many black immigrants were forced to live in
slum A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily inh ...
areas of cities, where the housing was of poor quality and there were problems of crime, violence and prostitution. One of the most notorious slum landlords was Peter Rachman, who owned around 100 properties in the Notting Hill area of London. Black tenants typically paid twice the rent of white tenants, and lived in conditions of extreme overcrowding. Historian Winston James argues that the experience of racism in Britain was a major factor in the development of a shared Caribbean identity amongst black immigrants from a range of different island and class backgrounds. In the 1970s and 1980s, black people in Britain were the victims of racist violence perpetrated by
far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
groups such as the National Front. During this period, it was also common for Black
footballers A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
to be subjected to racist chanting from crowd members. Racism in Britain in general, including against black people, is considered to have declined over time. Academic Robert Ford demonstrates that social distance, measured using questions from the British Social Attitudes survey about whether people would mind having an ethnic minority boss or have a close relative marry an ethnic minority spouse, declined over the period 1983–1996. These declines were observed for attitudes towards Black and Asian ethnic minorities. Much of this change in attitudes happened in the 1990s. In the 1980s, opposition to interracial marriage were significant. Nonetheless, Ford argues that "Racism and racial discrimination remain a part of everyday life for Britain's ethnic minorities. Black and Asian Britons...are less likely to be employed and are more likely to work in worse jobs, live in worse houses and suffer worse health than White Britons". The University of Maryland's Minorities at Risk (MAR) project noted in 2006 that while African-Caribbeans in the United Kingdom no longer face formal discrimination, they continue to be under-represented in politics, and to face discriminatory barriers in access to housing and in employment practices. The project also notes that the British school system "has been indicted on numerous occasions for racism, and for undermining the self-confidence of black children and maligning the culture of their parents". The MAR profile on African-Caribbeans in the United Kingdom notes "growing 'black on black' violence between people from the Caribbean and immigrants from Africa". There is concern that murders using knives are given insufficient attention because most victims are black. Martin Hewitt of the Metropolitan Police said, "I do fear sometimes that because the majority of those that are injured or killed are coming from certain communities and very often the black communities in London, it doesn’t get the sense of collective outrage that it ought to do and really get everyone to a place where we are all doing everything we can to prevent this from happening. It’s an enormous effort on our part. We are putting enormous resources in to try and stem the flow of the violence and having some success at doing that. But collectively we all ought to be looking at this and seeing how we can prevent it."


Unemployment

According to the 2005 TUC report ''Black workers, jobs and poverty'', Black and minority ethnic people (BMEs) were more likely to be unemployed than the White population. The rate of unemployment among the White population was 5%, but among ethnic minority groups it was Bangladeshi 17%, Pakistani 15%, Mixed 15%, Black Britons 13%, Other ethnic 12% and Indian 7%. Of the different ethnic groups studied, Asians had the highest poverty rate of 45% (after housing costs), Black Britons 38% and Chinese/other 32% (compared to a poverty rate of 20% for the White population). However, the report did concede that things were slowly improving. A 2014 study by the Black Training and Enterprise Group (BTEG), funded by
Trust for London {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 Trust for London is an independent charitable foundation which aims to tackle poverty and inequality in London and its root causes. It was established in 1891 as the City Parochial Foundation and changed its name to ...
, explored the views of young Black males in London on why their demographic have a higher unemployment rate than any other group of young people, finding that many young Black men in London believe that racism and negative stereotyping are the main reasons for their high unemployment rate. In 2019, 69% of Black 16 to 64 year olds were employed, compared to 65% of Asians and 77% of White British. The number of Black Britons employed was therefore higher than the 66% average for all non-white ethnic minorities.


Crime

Both racist crime and gang-related crime continues to affect black communities, so much so that the
Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
launched Operation Trident to tackle black-on-black crimes. Numerous deaths in police custody of black men has generated a general distrust of police among urban blacks in the UK. According to the Metropolitan Police Authority in 2002–03 of the 17 deaths in police custody, 10 were black or Asian – black convicts have a disproportionately higher rate of incarceration than other ethnicities. The government reportsStatistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System – 2004 A Home Office publication under section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991
Retrieved 17 March 2011.
The overall number of racist incidents recorded by the police rose by 7 per cent from 49,078 in 2002/03 to 52,694 in 2003/04. Media representation of young black British people has focused particularly on "gangs" with black members and violent crimes involving black victims and perpetrators. According to a Home Office report, 10 per cent of all murder victims between 2000 and 2004 were black. Of these, 56 per cent were murdered by other black people (with 44 per cent of black people murdered by whites and Asians – making black people disproportionately higher victims of killing by people from other ethnicities). In addition, a Freedom of Information request made by '' The Daily Telegraph'' shows internal police data that provides a breakdown of the ethnicity of the 18,091 men and boys who police took action against for a range of offences in London in October 2009. Among those proceeded against for street crimes, 54 per cent were black; for robbery, 59 per cent; and for gun crimes, 67 per cent. According to the Office for National Statistics, 18.4% of homicide suspects in England and Wales over March 2019 - March 2021 were Black. Black people, who according to government statistics make up 2 per cent of the population, are the principal suspects in 11.7 per cent of murders, i.e. in 252 out of 2163 murders committed 2001/2, 2002/3, and 2003/4. Judging on the basis of prison population, a substantial minority (about 35%) of black criminals in the United Kingdom are not British citizens but foreign nationals. In November 2009, the Home Office published a study that showed that, once other variables had been accounted for, ethnicity was not a significant predictor of offending, anti-social behaviour or drug abuse among young people. After several high-profile investigations such as that of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the police have been accused of racism, from both within and outside the service. Cressida Dick, head of the
Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
's anti-racism unit in 2003, remarked that it was "difficult to imagine a situation where we will say we are no longer
institutionally racist Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health ...
". Black people were seven times more likely to be stopped and searched by police compared to white people, according to the Home Office, A separate study said blacks were more than nine times more likely to be searched. Even though blacks are only 2 to 3% of the general UK population, black prisoners make up 15% of the British prison population, which experts say is "a result of decades of racial prejudice in the criminal justice system and an overly punitive approach to penal affairs." About 51% of boys in young offender institutions identified as being from a BME background.


Notable black Britons


Pre-20th century

Well-known black Britons living before the 20th century include the Chartist
William Cuffay William Cuffay (1788 – July 1870) was a Chartist leader in early Victorian London. Chatham Cuffay William was mixed-race, the son of an English woman from Gillingham, Kent, Juliana Fox, and a man of African heritage, Chatham Cuffay, who wa ...
; William Davidson, who was executed as a Cato Street conspirator; Olaudah Equiano (also called Gustavus Vassa), a former slave who bought his freedom, moved to England, and settled in Soham, Cambridgeshire, where he married and wrote an autobiography, dying in 1797; Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, pioneer of the slave narrative; and
Ignatius Sancho Charles Ignatius Sancho ( – 14 December 1780) was a British abolitionist, writer and composer. Born on a slave ship in the Atlantic, Sancho was sold into slavery in the Spanish colony of New Granada. After his parents died, Sancho's owner t ...
, a grocer who also acquired a reputation as a
man of letters An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
. In 2004, a poll found that people considered the Crimean War heroine Mary Seacole to be the greatest Black Briton. Seacole was born in Jamaica in 1805 to a white father and black mother. A statue of her, designed by Martin Jennings, was unveiled in the grounds of
St. Thomas' Hospital St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS teaching hospital in Central London, England. It is one of the institutions that compose the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. Administratively part of the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foun ...
opposite the Houses of Parliament in London in June 2016, following a 12-year campaign that raised £500,000 to honour her.


Recognition

A number of awards and honours exist to recognise talent and influence of the Black British community. The MOBO Awards, was the first awards ceremony that celebrates the achievements in music of black origin in 2006. Founder
Kanya King Kanya King, (born in Kilburn, London) is a British entrepreneur who is the founder of the MOBO Awards. Biography King was born in Kilburn, London, to an Irish mother and a Ghanaian father, being the youngest of their nine children. Her father ...
has subsequently been awarded both a
MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...
and a CBE for her services to the music industry, and the awards have taken place annually since its inauguration. The '' Powerlist'' is an annual list of the 100 most influential people of
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
or
African Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the t ...
heritage in the UK. The list was first created in 2007 by Michael Eboda, then editor of the '' New Nation'', a weekly newspaper published in the UK for the Black British community, as a way to profile and celebrate influential Black Britons, and inspire and influence the next generation. The list is updated annually and has been published in book format by Powerful Media since 2007. The ''Powerlist'' is not limited to British born citizens and it includes individuals born overseas who have emigrated to the UK. The 50 highest rated nominees, along with updates on the previous year's Powerlistees from rank 2–100, are then ranked by an independent panel in the summer, with the list being produced each autumn. Each year's highest ranking individual is added to the Powerlist Hall of Fame. In 2014,
Melanie Eusebe Melanie Veronique Eusebe (born 12 March 1977) is a British entrepreneur and author, known for co-founding the ''Black British Business Awards'' in 2014. She has written for publications such as ''The Huffington Post'' and '' Management Today''. ...
and
Sophie Chandauka Sophie Tendai Chandauka MBE is a Zimbabwe-born corporate finance lawyer, entrepreneur and Head of Americas Risk Management and Intelligence at Meta. Previously, Chandauka was Global COO of Shared Services and Banking Operations at Morgan Stanley ...
co-founded the ''Black British Business Awards'', to celebrate the contributions of inspiring professionals across all UK Industries. The British Ethnic Diversity Sports Awards (BEDSA) were launched in 2016, celebrating the contribution of and achievements of ethnic minority sportspeople and have included awards presented to cricketer Jofra Archer and athlete
Christine Ohuruogu Christine Ijeoma Ohuruogu , MBE (born 17 May 1984) is a British former track and field athlete who specialised in the 400 metres, the event for which she is a former Olympic, World and Commonwealth champion. The Olympic champion in 2008, and s ...
. The inaugural Black British Theatre Awards, co-founded by activist Solange Urdang and theatre director and choreographer Omar F. Okai, took place in October 2019 at Old
Finsbury Town Hall Finsbury Town Hall is a municipal building in Finsbury, London. The structure is a Grade II* listed building. History The building was commissioned by the Parish of St James's Church, Clerkenwell to replace an early 19th century vestry hall at ...
hosted by Ore Oduba, with winners including
Lynette Linton Lynette Linton (born 1990) is a British playwright and the artistic director at The Bush Theatre. She directed the award-winning Donmar Warehouse production of ''Sweat''. In 2019 she was named as one of ''Marie Claire''s "Future Shapers". Early ...
for best Director, Beverley Knight MBE for supporting actress and ''
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: People * Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname ** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland ** Lord Hamilt ...
'' as best musical production.


Nobility

Some British aristocrats descend from the Afro-Russian courtier General
Abram Petrovich Gannibal Abram Petrovich Gannibal, also Hannibal or Ganibal, or Abram Hannibal or Abram Petrov ( ru , Абра́м Петро́вич Ганниба́л; c. 1696 – 14 May 1781), was a Russian military engineer, general-in-chief, and nobleman of Africa ...
, including Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster and her sister
Alexandra Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn Alexandra Anastasia Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, (''née'' Phillips; 27 February 1946 – 10 December 2018) was a British peeress and philanthropist. She was the wife of James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Abercorn, and a descendant of Russian poet ...
– the daughters of
Georgina, Lady Kennard Georgina, Lady Kennard (''née'' Wernher; formerly Phillips; 17 October 1919 – 28 April 2011) was a British aristocrat who was considered "one of the best connected women in the country." She was connected to many prominent families such as th ...
– and their descendants (such as Natalia's son Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster).
George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven George Ivar Louis Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven (born 6 June 1961), styled Earl of Medina before 1970, is a British peer and businessman. Biography Family Lord Milford Haven is the elder son of the David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of ...
, is also a direct descendant as the grandson of Nadejda Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven. In addition to this, both the mixed-race royal
Archie Mountbatten-Windsor Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor (born 6 May 2019) is the son of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. He is a grandson of King Charles III and is sixth in the line of succession to the British throne. Birth, family ...
and the mixed-race aristocrat John Thynn, Viscount Weymouth are each currently the heir apparent to the
dukedom of Sussex Duke of Sussex is a substantive title, one of several royal dukedoms, that has been created twice in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It is a hereditary title of a specific rank of nobility in the British royal family. It takes its name fr ...
and the marquessate of Bath respectively. Other mixed-race descendants of British nobles include the philosopher
Kwame Anthony Appiah Kwame Akroma-Ampim Kusi Anthony Appiah ( ; born 8 May 1954) is a philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Appiah wa ...
(who is the great-grandson of Charles Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor), the actor
Adetomiwa Edun Babatunde Adetomiwa Stafford "Tomiwa" Edun, (born 1985)Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage 2003, vol. 3, p. 3063Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage, 1995, ed. Patrick Montague-Smith, Debrett's Peerage Ltd, p. 986 is a Nigerian actor. He is ...
(who is the aforementioned Lord Parmoor's great-great-grandson), the writer
James Forman Jr. James Forman Jr. (born James Robert Lumumba Forman; June 22, 1967) is an American legal scholar currently serving as the Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is the author of '' Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America'', which ...
(who is the great-grandson of
David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale (13 March 1878 – 17 March 1958) was an English landowner and the father of the Mitford sisters, in whose various novels and memoirs he is depicted. Ancestry and early life Mitford's le ...
), and the models Adwoa and
Kesewa Aboah Kesewa Arbell Lavinia Aboah (born May 1994) is a British artist and model. Early life and family Aboah was born in London, England, to Charles Aboah, a Ghanaian location scout in the fashion industry and former barrister clerk, and Camilla Lo ...
(who are the great-granddaughters of
Anthony Lowther, Viscount Lowther Anthony Edward Lowther, Viscount Lowther (24 September 1896 – 6 October 1949) was an England, English courtier and soldier. Early life Anthony Edward Lowther was the eldest son of Lancelot Lowther, 6th Earl of Lonsdale by his first wife, ...
).


Television

Jamaican-born Barbara Blake-Hannah was the first black person to be an on-camera reporter and interviewer on British television in 1968. Television reporter and newsreader Sir Trevor McDonald, born in Trinidad, was knighted in 1999. Also notable is Moira Stuart,
OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
, the first female newsreader of African-Caribbean heritage on British television. Clive Myrie, of Jamaican heritage, is another notable newsreader and reporter. He is also the host of the long-running BBC quiz shows ''Mastermind'' and ''
Celebrity Mastermind ''Celebrity Mastermind'' is a celebrity version of ''Mastermind'', a British television quiz show broadcast by BBC television. It began in 2002 as a one-off special, expanding to the current arrangement of 10 episodes, broadcast during December a ...
''. Other high-profile television personalities and entertainers include comedian Sir Lenny Henry, Rudolph Walker, Joseph Marcell,
Nabil Elouahabi Nabil Elouahabi (born 6 February 1975), often credited as Nabil Elouhabi, is a British- Moroccan actor, known for his role as Tariq Larousi in ''EastEnders'' from 2003 to 2005, as Rashid "Gary" Mahmoon in " Strangers on the Shore" (the 2002 Chri ...
and chef Ainsley Harriott.


Singers

Marsha Ambrosius, Joan Armatrading, Pato Banton, Dame
Shirley Bassey Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey (; born 8 January 1937) is a Welsh singer. Best known for her career longevity, powerful voice and recording the theme songs to three James Bond films, Bassey is widely regarded as one of the most popular vocalists ...
,
Mel B Melanie Janine Brown (born 29 May 1975), commonly known as Melanie B or Mel B, is an English singer, songwriter, and television personality. She rose to fame in the 1990s as a member of the girl group Spice Girls, in which she was nicknamed Sc ...
,
Alexandra Burke Alexandra Imelda Cecelia Ewen Burke (born 25 August 1988) is a British singer, songwriter and actress. She won the fifth series of the British television series ''The X Factor'' in 2008, and has been signed to Epic Records, RCA Records and Syc ...
,
Celeste Celeste may refer to: Geography * Mount Celeste, unofficial name of a mountain on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada * Celeste, Texas, a rural city in North Texas ** Celeste High School, public high school located in the city of Celeste, ...
,
Diane Charlemagne Diane Charlemagne (22 February 1964 – 28 October 2015) was a British jazz, soul, funk and electronic dance music singer and songwriter. Biography Charlemagne was lead singer with 1980s funk band 52nd Street, having replaced previous lead voc ...
, Taio Cruz, Craig David, Des'ree, Fleur East, Estelle, Gabrielle,
Roland Gift Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...
, Jaki Graham, David Grant,
Eddy Grant Edmond Montague Grant (born 5 March 1948) is a Guyanese-British singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known for his genre-blending sound; his music has blended elements of pop, British rock, soul, funk, reggae, electronic music, Afr ...
, Pauline Henry, Dev Hynes, Jamelia, KSI, Leona Lewis, Shaznay Lewis, Mahalia,
Ella Mai Ella Mai Howell (born 3 November 1994) is an English singer-songwriter. Her musical career began at London's British and Irish Modern Music Institute in 2014, during which time she auditioned as part of a trio on the 11th season of ''The X Fa ...
, MNEK, Maxine Nightingale, Billy Ocean, Mica Paris, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Maxi Priest, Corinne Bailey Rae, Andrew Roachford,
Sade Sade may refer to: People * Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), French aristocrat, writer, and libertine * Sade (singer) (born 1959, Helen Folasade Adu), British Nigerian musician and lead singer of the eponymous band * Sade Baderinwa (born 1969), WAB ...
, Emeli Sande, Seal,
Skepta Chief Joseph Olaitan Adenuga Jr. (born 19 September 1982), known professionally as Skepta, is a British-Nigerian grime MC, rapper and record producer. Alongside his younger brother Jme, he briefly joined Roll Deep before they became founding ...
, Heather Small, Jorja Smith,
21 Savage Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph (born October 22, 1992), known professionally as 21 Savage, is a rapper based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Born in London, he moved to Atlanta with his mother at age seven. He became known after releasing two m ...
,
Benji Webbe Clive John "Benji" Webbe (born 11 March 1967) is a Welsh singer, best known as the lead vocalist and synthesizer player for the reggae metal band Skindred. Aside from his main project, he is also active in Diamond Spider, Dub War, Mass Mental and ...
,
Simon Webbe Simon Solomon Webbe (born 30 March 1979) is a British singer. He is best known as a member of the boy band Blue, forming in 2000 before splitting in 2005 and reforming in 2009, selling over 15 million records. Webbe released three solo studio a ...
,
Caron Wheeler Caron Melina Wheeler (born 19 January 1963) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and musician. Born and raised in London, she performed in various singing competitions as a teenager and began her recording career as one of the found ...
, and Young MC are among the popular singers not mentioned in the music section above.


Film

Sir Horace Ové was the first Black British filmmaker to direct a feature-length film, '' Pressure,'' in 1976. Considered a pioneer in Black British filmmaking, Ové was awarded a knighthood for his services to media. Inspired by Ové, Menelik Shabazz became the second Black filmmaker to direct a feature film in the UK, ''
Burning an Illusion ''Burning an Illusion'' is a 1981 British film written and directed by Menelik Shabazz, about a young British-born black woman's love life, mostly shot in London's Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove communities.Ade Solanke"Burning an Illusion (1981 ...
,'' in 1981. The film received critical acclaim and is considered an important landmark in UK cinema. ''Burning an Illusion'' won the Grand Prix at the Amiens International Film Festival in France. The most prominent Black British filmmaker is Sir
Steve McQueen Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1 ...
, who after initially receiving acclaim as a visual artist and winning the Turner Prize in 1999, went on to direct his first feature '' Hunger'' (2008), which earned him the Caméra d'Or at the
2008 Cannes Film Festival The 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival was held from 14 to 25 May 2008. The President of the Official Jury was American actor and director Sean Penn. Twenty two films from fourteen countries were selected to compete for the ''Palme d'Or''. The awards ...
. His third feature film, ''
12 Years a Slave ''Twelve Years a Slave'' is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details himself being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., ...
'' (2013), won several major international awards, and McQueen became the first black filmmaker to win an
Academy Award for Best Picture The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category ...
. Other notable Black British filmmakers include Richard Ayoade, Amma Asante,
debbie tucker green debbie tucker green is a British playwright, screenwriter, and director. She spells her name in lower-case. She has written a number of plays, including ''born bad'' (2003), for which she won the Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 2004. ...
, Ngozi Onwurah, and Destiny Ekaragha.


Actors

Numerous black British actors have experienced success in US television, such as Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Idris Elba, Alfred Enoch, Damson Idris, Lennie James, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Regé-Jean Page, and Marsha Thomason. Black British actors are also increasingly found starring in major Hollywood films, notable examples include
Kingsley Ben-Adir Kingsley Ben-Adir (born 28 February 1986) is a British actor. He has performed in several plays in London theatres. He played pathologist Marcus Summer in ITV's detective drama ''Vera'' and private detective Karim Washington on the second seas ...
, John Boyega,
Lois Chimimba Lois is a common English name from the New Testament. Paul the Apostle mentions Lois, the pious grandmother of Saint Timothy in the Second Epistle to Timothy (commending her for her faith in 2 Timothy 1:5). The name was first used by English Chris ...
, Franz Drameh, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Cynthia Erivo, David Harewood, Naomie Harris, Daniel Kaluuya, Adrian Lester,
Delroy Lindo Delroy George Lindo (born 18 November 1952) is an English-American actor. He is the recipient of such accolades as a NAACP Image Award, a Satellite Award, and nominations for a Drama Desk Award, a Helen Hayes Award, a Tony Award, two Critics' Cho ...
,
Lashana Lynch Lashana Lynch (born 27 November 1987) is a British actress. She is best known for playing the role of Rosaline Capulet in the ABC period drama series '' Still Star-Crossed'' (2017), Maria Rambeau in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films '' C ...
, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Thandiwe Newton, Sophie Okonedo,
Eunice Olumide Eunice Olumide MBE is a Scottish fashion model and actress. Early life Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Olumide has dual British and Nigerian nationality. The name "Olumide" means "God has come" or "My Hero has come" in the Yoruba language. ...
, David Oyelowo,
Aaron Pierre Aaron Jordan Pierre (born 17 February 1993) is a professional footballer who plays as a centre back for League Two club Sutton United and the Grenada national team. He began his career in the academy at Premier League club Fulham, before join ...
, Hugh Quarshie,
Maisie Richardson-Sellers Maisie Richardson-Sellers is a British actress. She is known for her recurring role as Eva Sinclair on The CW series '' The Originals'', as well as her starring roles as King Saul of Israel's daughter Michal in the ABC Biblical series ''Of King ...
, Colin Salmon, Antonia Thomas,
Eamonn Walker Eamonn Roderique Walker (born 12 June 1962) is an English film, television, and theatre actor. In the United States he is known for playing Kareem Saïd in the HBO television series '' Oz'', for which he won a CableACE Award, and (since 2012) Ch ...
,
Ashley Walters Ashley Walters may refer to: * Ashley Walters (actor) (born 1982), English rapper and actor * Ashley Walters (artist) (born 1983), South African artist {{Hndis, Walters, Ashley ...
, and Letitia Wright. Looking to join the listed above are young stars such as
Ricardo P. Lloyd Ricardo P Lloyd (born 20 November 1993) is a British actor and presenter. He began his career in theatre, appearing in productions, including those by Shakespeare's Globe. In 2020, ''The Voice'' named him one of the Top 20 to watch out for. In ...
who spoke about the challenges many black British actors face in the UK industry compared to the US in an article by '' The Independent''.


Visual artists

Among notable Black British visual artists are painters such as Chris Ofili, Frank Bowling, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Keith Piper,
Sonia Boyce Sonia Dawn Boyce, (born 1962) is a British Afro-Caribbean artist and educator, living and working in London. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Boyce's research interests explore art as a social practic ...
, Paul Dash,
Kimathi Donkor Kimathi Donkor (born in 1965) is a London-based contemporary British artist of Ghanaian, Anglo-Jewish and Jamaican family heritage whose figurative paintings depict "African diasporic bodies and souls as sites of heroism and martydom, empowermen ...
,
Claudette Johnson Claudette Elaine Johnson (born 1959) is a British visual artist. She is known for her large-scale drawings of Black women and involvement with the BLK Art Group. She was described by Modern Art Oxford as "one of the most accomplished figurativ ...
, Winston Branch, and sculptors including Sokari Douglas Camp,
Ronald Moody Ronald Moody (12 August 1900 – 6 February 1984) was a Jamaican-born sculptor, specialising in wood carvings. His work features in collections including the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain in London, as well as the National Gallery ...
,
Fowokan George "Fowokan" Kelly (born 1 April 1943) is a Jamaican-born visual artist who lives in United Kingdom, Britain and exhibits using the name "Fowokan" (a Yoruba language, Yoruba word meaning: "one who creates with the hand"). He is a largely se ...
, Yinka Shonibare and
Zak Ové Zak Ové (born 1966) is a British-Trinidad visual artist who works between sculpture, film and photography, living in London, UK, and Trinidad. His themes reflect "his documentation of and anthropological interest in diasporic and African history ...
.


Fashion

Naomi Campbell was the first black model to appear on the front cover of '' Time'', French ''Vogue'', and the September issue of American ''Vogue''. Other notable models include
Leomie Anderson Leomie Jasmin Francis Anderson (born 14 February 1993) is a British fashion model, television presenter, and activist. She has walked in four consecutive Victoria's Secret Fashion Shows from 2015 to 2018, and became a Victoria's Secret Angel in ...
, Jourdan Dunn,
Paloma Elsesser Paloma Kai Shockley Elsesser (born April 12, 1992) is an American fashion model. Early life Elsesser was born in London, England to an African-American mother and a father of Chilean and Swiss descent. Her Grandfather is Swiss and came from a Sw ...
and Munroe Bergdorf.


Writers

Britain's first major black newspaper, the ''
West Indian Gazette ''West Indian Gazette'' (''WIG'') was a newspaper founded in Brixton, London, England, by Trinidadian communist & black nationalist activist Claudia Jones (1915–1964) in March 1958. The title as displayed on its masthead was subsequently expande ...
'' (WIG), was founded by communist activist
Claudia Jones Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black national ...
in 1958. Notable Black British writers include Andrea Levy, whose best selling book, '' Small Island'' (2004)'','' won the
Whitbread Book of the Year The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then ...
, the
Orange Prize for Fiction The Women's Prize for Fiction (previously with sponsor names Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 and 2009–12), Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–08) and Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (2014–2017)) is one of the United Kingdom's m ...
and the
Commonwealth Writers' Prize Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...
. Levy became the first Black writer whose pen would join the
Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
's historic collection, which includes pens belonging to Charles Dickens, George Eliot,
T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...
and Lord Byron. Bernardine Evaristo's novel ''
Girl, Woman, Other ''Girl, Woman, Other'' is the eighth novel by Bernardine Evaristo. Published in 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, it follows the lives of 12 characters in the United Kingdom over the course of several decades. The book was the co-winner of the 2019 Booker ...
'' won the
Man Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...
in 2019, making Evaristo the first Black British writer to win the Man Booker. In 2020, Evaristo was made an
Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
for her services to literature. Zadie Smith won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Best Book Award (Eurasia Section) and the Orange Prize for ''
On Beauty ''On Beauty'' is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith, loosely based on ''Howards End'' by E. M. Forster. The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States, addresses ethnic and cultural dif ...
''. Smith's acclaimed first novel, ''
White Teeth ''White Teeth'' is a 2000 novel by the British author Zadie Smith. It focuses on the later lives of two wartime friends—the Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal and the Englishman Archie Jones—and their families in London. The novel centres on Britain' ...
'' (2000) was an international best seller and won multiple accolades, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the Whitbread Book Award in category best first novel, the Guardian First Book Award and the
Betty Trask Award The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. Each year the awards total £20,000, with one author receiving a larger prize amount, called the ...
. '' Time'' magazine included the novel in its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.
Dreda Say Mitchell Louise Emma Joseph (born 1965), known professionally as Dreda Say Mitchell MBE, is a British novelist, broadcaster, journalist and campaigner. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2020 for her services to liter ...
became the first Black British writer to be awarded the Crime Writers Association’s John Creasey Dagger for her debut book ''Running Hot,'' in 2005. Mitchell's 2019 psychological thriller, ''Spare Room,'' became a critically acclaimed international best seller and she was honoured with an MBE for services to literature. At the 2020 British Book Awards,
Candice Carty-Williams Candice Carty-Williams (born 21 July 1989) is a British writer, best known for her 2019 debut novel, ''Queenie (novel), Queenie''. She has written for publications including ''The Guardian'', ''i-D'', ''Vogue (magazine), Vogue'', ''The Sunday Ti ...
became the first Black woman to win the "Book of the Year" accolade, for her novel ''
Queenie Queenie may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Queenie'' (film), a 1921 American silent drama film *Queenie (Melbourne elephant), an elephant at Melbourne Zoo *Queenie (waterskiing elephant) *''Queenie'', a 1985 novel by Michael Korda ** ''Queeni ...
.'' ''Queenie'' entered the ''
Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' Bestseller hardback chart at number two and has gone on to win numerous accolades. Other notable novelists include
Caryl Phillips Caryl Phillips (born 13 March 1958) is a Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist. Best known for his novels (for which he has won multiple awards), Phillips is often described as a Black Atlantic writer, since much of his fictional ...
,
Victor Headley Victor Headley (born 1959) is a Jamaican-born British author. He is the author of the bestselling novel ''Yardie'' (1992), which gained cult status upon publication and "heralded a new wave of black British pulp fiction". Other books by Headley in ...
,
Alex Wheatle Alex Alphonso Wheatle MBE (Order of the British Empire), MBE (born 3 January 1963) is a British novelist, who was sentence (law), sentenced to a term of imprisonment after the 1981 Brixton riot in London. Biography Born in 1963 in London to J ...
,
Ferdinand Dennis Ferdinand Dennis (born 18 March 1956)"Ferdinand Dennis"
,
...
(winner of the
Martin Luther King Memorial Prize The Martin Luther King Memorial Prize was instituted by novelist John Brunner and his wife and was awarded annually to a literary work published in the US or Britain that was deemed to improve interracial understanding,Derek Humphry''Good Life, Go ...
for his 1988 travelogue ''Behind the Frontlines: Journey into Afro-Britain''), George Lamming, Samuel Selvon (who wrote the groundbreaking novel ''
The Lonely Londoners ''The Lonely Londoners'' is a 1956 novel by Trinidadian author Samuel Selvon. Its publication was one of the first to focus on poor, working-class black people following the enactment of the British Nationality Act 1948 alongside George Lamming's ...
),''
Andrew Salkey Andrew Salkey (30 January 1928 – 28 April 1995) was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaicans, Jamaican and Panamanian origin. He was born in Panama but raised in Jamaica, moving to Britain in the 1952 to pu ...
, Sir Wilson Harris (who was
knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...
and received a Lifetime Achievement Prize from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards), Mike Phillips, Booker Prize nominee
Nadifa Mohamed Nadifa Mohamed ( so, Nadiifa Maxamed, ar, نظيفة محمد) (born 1981) is a Somali-British novelist. She featured on ''Granta'' magazine's list "Best of Young British Novelists" in 2013, and in 2014 on the Africa39 list of writers aged u ...
and
Diran Adebayo Oludiran "Diran" Adebayo FRSL (born 30 August 1968) is a British novelist, cultural critic and academic, best known for his tales of London and the lives of African diasporans. His work has been characterised by its interest in multiple cultura ...
(first winner in 1995 of the
Saga Prize The Saga Prize was a literary award for new Black British novelists, which ran from 1995 to 1998. History The actress and writer Marsha Hunt established the Saga Prize in 1995 to recognise the literature emerging from indigenous black Britons' e ...
, which was set up by Marsha Hunt to encourage Black British writing and ran for four years).
Jackie Kay Jacqueline Margaret Kay, (born 9 November 1961), is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works ''Other Lovers'' (1993), ''Trumpet'' (1998) and ''Red Dust Road'' (2011). Kay has won many awards, including the Guardian Fictio ...
was Scots Makar, the national poet laureate of Scotland, between 2016 and 2021. Other notable poets include Roger Robinson (won the prestigious
T. S. Eliot Prize The T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry is a prize that was, for many years, awarded by the Poetry Book Society (UK) to "the best collection of new verse in English first published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland" in any particular year. The Priz ...
2019), Benjamin Zephaniah, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Lemn Sissay,
Salena Godden Salena Godden is an English poet, author, activist, broadcaster, memoirist and essayist. Born in the UK, Salena Godden is of Jamaican-Irish heritage and based in London. Widely anthologised, she has published several books. She has also writt ...
, Warsan Shire,
Patience Agbabi Patience Agbabi Royal Society of Literature, FRSL (born 1965) is a British poet and performer who emphasizes the spoken word.. Although her poetry hits hard in addressing contemporary themes, it often makes use of formal constraints, including t ...
,
Kamau Brathwaite The Honourable Edward Kamau Brathwaite, CHB (; 11 May 1930 – 4 February 2020), was a Barbadian poet and academic, widely considered one of the major voices in the Caribbean literary canon.Staff (2011)"Kamau Brathwaite." New York University, D ...
(won the 2006 International Griffin Poetry Prize, for his volume of poetry ''Born to Slow Horses)'' and James Berry, who was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to poetry. Notable playwrights include
Mustapha Matura Mustapha Matura (17 December 1939 – 29 October 2019) was a Trinidadian playwright living in London. Characterised by critic Michael Billington as "a pioneering black playwright who opened the doors for his successors", Matura was the first Br ...
, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Roy Williams, Winsome Pinnock,
Patricia Cumper Patricia Cumper, MBE, FRSA (born 1954), also known as Pat Cumper, is a British playwright, producer, director, theatre administrator, critic and commentator. She was the artistic director and CEO of Talawa Theatre Company from 2006 to 2012, and ...
and Bola Agbaje. Other contributors include journalists such as Reni Eddo-Lodge,
Gary Younge Gary Andrew Younge , (born January 1969) is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and academic. He was editor-at-large for ''The Guardian'' newspaper, which he joined in 1993. In November 2019, it was announced that Younge had been appointe ...
, Afua Hirsch, Ekow Eshun, and Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman.
Onyeka Nubia Onyeka Nubia is a British historian, author and academic. Using the pen name Onyeka, his works explore the history of Black British people, and multiculturalism in the United Kingdom. In 2013, he published the non-fiction work '' Blackamoores: ...
is the author of fictional trilogy ''Waiting to Explode'', ''The Black Prince'', and ''The Phoenix'', for which he won the 2009 African Achievers award for Communication and Media. '' Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, their Presence, Status and Origins'' is his latest book, published by Narrative Eye in 2013, in which he proves that Black people in Tudor England had free status and were not slaves. ''Blackamoores'' was runner-up in the 2013/14 People's Book Prize.


Police service

Norwell Roberts Norwell Lionel Roberts (né Gumbs; born 23 October 1946) is a British former police constable—the first black police officer to join London's Metropolitan Police. He eventually rose to the rank of Detective Sergeant. During his career, he wa ...
was one of the first black police officers to join the
Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
in 1967, eventually rising to the rank of Detective Sergeant. Roberts was awarded the Queen's Police Medal for distinguished service in 1996 and retired from duty in 1997.
Michael Fuller Michael Fuller (born 1959), also known as Mike Fuller, is a former Chief Constable of Kent Police and Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service. He was the first (and so far only) ethnic minority chief constable in the United Kingdom a ...
, after a career in the Metropolitan Police, served as the Chief Constable of Kent from 2004 to 2010. He is the son of Jamaican immigrants who came to the United Kingdom in the 1950s. Fuller was brought up in
Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
, where his interest in the police force was encouraged by an officer attached to his school. He is a graduate in social psychology. Leroy Logan served as a Metropolitan Police superintendent and was a founding member and chairman of the National Black Police Association. Logan was awarded an
MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...
for his fight against racism within the police force. Janet Hills was the first woman to chair the National Black Police Association and was awarded an MBE for her services to policing and to community relations.


Military services

British communist activist
Charlie Hutchison Charles William Duncan Hutchison (1918–1993) was a British-Ghanaian anti-fascist, soldier, and ambulance driver most famous for being the only Black-British member of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. In Spain he was one ...
, born in Witney and raised in an orphanage, was the only black British volunteer to join the British Battalion of the
International Brigades The International Brigades ( es, Brigadas Internacionales) were military units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed f ...
during the Spanish Civil War. He spent almost 10 years uninteruptedly fighting fascists, taking part in the Battle of Cable Street, and fighting in numerous battles including the
Dunkirk evacuation The Dunkirk evacuation, codenamed Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, or just Dunkirk, was the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied soldiers during the Second World War from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk, in the ...
, and the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In 2005, soldier Johnson Beharry, born in
Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pe ...
, became the first man to win the Victoria Cross, the United Kingdom's foremost military award for bravery, since the
Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
of 1982. He was awarded the medal for service in Iraq in 2004. Air Commodore David Case is the highest ranking black officer in the forces. He joined the RAF as a 19-year-old cadet to read aeronautical engineering at the
Queen's University Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...
. He received his commission in 1975 and was awarded the distinguished Sword of Honour, which is bestowed upon the top cadet officer of the year.


Sport

In the sport of boxing, there have been multiple Black British world champions, including
Lennox Lewis Lennox Claudius Lewis (born 2 September 1965) is a former professional boxer and boxing commentator who competed from 1989 to 2003. He is a three-time world heavyweight champion, a two-time lineal champion, and the last heavyweight to hold ...
(three-time heavyweight world champion, two-time lineal champion, the most recent heavyweight to hold the
undisputed championship Undisputed championship may refer to: *Undisputed championship (boxing) *Undisputed championship (professional wrestling) An undisputed championship is a professional wrestling term for a champion who has obtained all of the major individual cha ...
, and widely viewed as one of the greatest boxers of all-time), Frank Bruno,
Chris Eubank Sr. Christopher Livingstone Eubank (born 8 August 1966) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1985 to 1998. He held the WBO middleweight and super-middleweight titles between 1990 and 1995, and is ranked by BoxRec as the third ...
, Nigel Benn, David Haye, Kell Brook,
James DeGale James Frederick DeGale (born 3 February 1986) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 2009 to 2019. He held the IBF super-middleweight title twice between 2015 and 2018, and regionally the European and British super-middleweig ...
,
Anthony Joshua Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua (born 15 October 1989) is an English professional boxer. He is a two-time former unified world heavyweight champion, having held the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO titles twice between 2016 and 2021. At r ...
and Lawrence Okolie. There are many notable black British
footballers A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
, some of whom have played for England, including Marcus Rashford, Paul Ince,
Sol Campbell Sulzeer Jeremiah Campbell (born 18 September 1974) is an English professional football manager and former player who was most recently the manager of club Southend United. He previously managed Macclesfield Town from November 2018 to August 20 ...
, John Barnes, Dion Dublin, Rio Ferdinand, Viv Anderson, Des Walker,
Ashley Cole Ashley Cole (born 20 December 1980) is an English football coach and former player who is currently a first-team coach at Premier League club Everton. As a player, he played as a left-back, most notably for Arsenal and Chelsea. Cole is consi ...
, Ian Wright, Daniel Sturridge, Daniel Welbeck, Joe Gomez, Micah Richards,
Bukayo Saka Bukayo Ayoyinka T. M. Saka (born 5 September 2001) is an English professional footballer who plays as a right winger for club Arsenal and the England national team. Saka is known for his attacking incisiveness and creativity, and is often cons ...
, Raheem Sterling, Jesse Lingard, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Danny Rose,
Ryan Bertrand Ryan Dominic Bertrand (born 5 August 1989) is an English professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Premier League club Leicester City. Bertrand began his youth career at Gillingham, before signing for Chelsea in July 2005. He gradu ...
,
Kyle Walker Kyle Andrew Walker (born 28 May 1990) is an English professional footballer who plays as a right-back for club Manchester City and the England national team. Walker started his career at his boyhood club Sheffield United which he had joined ...
,
Dele Alli Bamidele Jermaine Alli ( ; born 11 April 1996) is an English professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for club Beşiktaş, on loan from Premier League club Everton. Born and raised in Milton Keynes, he joined the youth s ...
and
David James Dewi, Dai, Dafydd or David James may refer to: Performers *David James (actor, born 1839) (1839–1893), English stage comic and a founder of London's Vaudeville Theatre *David James (actor, born 1967) (born 1967), Australian presenter of ABC's ''P ...
. Andrew Watson who is widely considered to be the world's first association footballer of black heritage, Chris Iwelumo and
Ikechi Anya Ikechi Anya (born 3 January 1988) is a Scottish former professional footballer. A versatile player, Anya was fielded in a number of positions, including winger, wing-back and full-back. He played for Wycombe Wanderers, Northampton Town, Wa ...
among others have all played for Scotland.
Eddie Parris John Edward Parris (31 January 1911 – 27 February 1971) was a Welsh international footballer, who played for Bradford Park Avenue, Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic, Luton Town, Bath City, Northampton Town and Cheltenham Town. He was the firs ...
,
Danny Gabbidon Daniel Leon Gabbidon (born 8 August 1979) is a Welsh former professional footballer who played as a defender. He played for West Bromwich Albion, Cardiff City (two spells), West Ham United, Queens Park Rangers, Crystal Palace, and Panteg. He a ...
,
Nathan Blake Nathan Blake (born 27 January 1972) is a Welsh former professional footballer, pundit and television presenter. He notably played in the Premier League for Sheffield United, Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers and Wolverhampton Wanderers. He al ...
and Ashley Williams have played for Wales. Black British people have performed well in track and field. Daley Thompson was the gold medallist for the Great Britain team in the decathlon in the 1980 and 1984 Olympics. The most decorated British athlete is Jamaica-born Linford Christie, who moved to the United Kingdom at age seven. He was winner of the gold medal in the 100 meters at the 1992 Olympics, the World Championships, the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. Sprinter
Dwain Chambers Dwain Anthony Chambers (born 5 April 1978) is a British track sprinter. He has won international medals at World and European levels and is one of the fastest European sprinters in the history of athletics. His primary event is the 100 me ...
grew up in London. His early achievements winning a world junior record for the 100 meters in 1997, as the youngest medal winner in the 1999 world championships, and fourth place at the 2000 Olympics were marred by a later scandal over the use of performance-enhancing drugs, like Christie before him. Kelly Holmes won Olympic gold in both the 800m and 1500m, and set many British records. In
cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
, many have represented England: Mark Alleyne, Jofra Archer,
Mark Butcher Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fin ...
,
Michael Carberry Michael Alexander Carberry (born 29 September 1980) is an English former professional cricketer who most recently played for Leicestershire County Cricket Club. Carberry is a left-handed opening batsman who bowls occasional right-arm off break ...
, Norman Cowans, Phillip DeFreitas,
Dean Headley Dean Warren Headley (born 27 January 1970) is a former English professional cricketer who played international cricket for the England cricket team in the 1990s. Headley was born in Stourbridge and comes from a famous cricketing family, being ...
, Chris Jordan, David Lawrence, Chris Lewis,
Devon Malcolm Devon Eugene Malcolm (born 22 February 1963) is a former English cricketer. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Malcolm played in 40 Test matches and 30 One Day Internationals for the England cricket team. At his best, he was the unquestionably the fast ...
, Gladstone Small, and
Alex Tudor Alex Jeremy Tudor (born 23 October 1977) is an English former professional cricketer who spent two spells with Surrey County Cricket Club as well as playing for Essex. He is a right-handed batsman and a right-arm fast bowler. He was awarded th ...
to name a few. In
Formula 1 Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
, the highest rank of motorsport sanctioned by the FIA, Sir Lewis Hamilton from
Stevenage Stevenage ( ) is a large town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, about north of London. Stevenage is east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1(M), between Letchworth Garden City to the north and Welwyn Garden City to the south. In 1946, Stevena ...
is a seven-time champion, having won the championship in , , , , , and . With seven titles, over 100 wins and pole positions, he is the most successful driver in British history.


Business

Dyke, Dryden and Wade created Britain's first black multi-million-pound business and laid the foundations for future UK black enterprise. Sir
Damon Buffini Sir Damon Marcus Buffini (born 1962) is a British businessman and governor of the Wellcome Trust. He was formerly head of the private equity company Permira. Education and early life Born in Leicester in 1962, the son of an African-American s ...
heads Permira, one of the world's largest private equity firms. He topped the 2007 '' Powerlist'' as the most powerful Black male in the United Kingdom by '' New Nation'' magazine and was appointed to then Prime Minister Gordon Brown's business advisory panel. Ismail Ahmed, is the founder and chairman of WorldRemit, a money transfer company, and Director of the Sahan Foundation International. In October 2019, Ahmed was named first in the Powerlist 2020, an annual list of the 100 most powerful people of African heritage in the UK.
René Carayol René Carayol MBE (born 10 September 1958) is a broadcaster and author. He presented the BBC series '' Did They Pay Off Their Mortgage in Two Years?'' and is the author of ''SPIKE - What Are You Great At'' and ''Corporate Voodoo''. Backgr ...
is a broadcaster,
broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper format), ta ...
columnist, business and leadership speaker and author, best known for presenting the BBC series '' Did They Pay Off Their Mortgage in Two Years?'' He has also served as an executive main board director for blue-chip companies as well as the public sector. Wol Kolade is council member and Chairman of the BVCA (British Venture Capital Association) and a Governor and council member of the London School of Economics and Political Science, chairing its Audit Committee.
Adam Afriyie Adam Mensah Osei Afriyie (born 4 August 1965) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Windsor since 2005. He is a member of the Conservative Party. Early life The son of an English mother and a Ghanaian fath ...
is a politician, and Conservative Member of Parliament for Windsor. He is also the founding director of Connect Support Services, an IT services company pioneering fixed-price support. He was also Chairman of DeHavilland Information Services plc, a news and information services company, and was a regional finalist in the 2003 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards.
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones (born 7 November 1957) is a British businessman, farmer, and founder of "The Black Farmer" range of food products. He was an unsuccessful Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party candidate for the Chippenham (UK Parliam ...
is a businessman, farmer and founder of the popular
Black Farmer Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones (born 7 November 1957) is a British businessman, farmer, and founder of "The Black Farmer" range of food products. He was an unsuccessful Conservative Party candidate for the Chippenham constituency for the 2010 general e ...
range of food products, which has annual revenues of over £7m. Following its success in 2007 on TV show '' Dragons' Den,'' the Levi Roots brand has grown into a multi-million pound enterprise. Dame Pat McGrath, who has been described as the most influential make-up artist in the world by '' Vogue'' magazine, owns a business with an estimated value of $1 billion. Mo Ibrahim is a telecommunications billionaire businessman and was listed by ''TIME'' magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Strive Masiyiwa Strive Masiyiwa (born 29 January 1961) is a London-based Zimbabwean billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of international technology groups Econet Global and Cassava Technologies. Masiyiwa has pro ...
is a billionaire businessman and founder and executive chairman of the international technology group
Econet Global Econet, officially known as Econet Global Ltd, is a diversified telecommunications group with operations and investments in Africa, Europe, South America and the East Asia Pacific Rim, offering products and services in the core areas of mobile a ...
. He became the first black billionaire to enter the ''
Sunday Times Rich List The ''Sunday Times Rich List'' is a list of the 1,000 wealthiest people or families resident in the United Kingdom ranked by net wealth. The list is updated annually in April and published as a magazine supplement by British national Sunday news ...
in 2021.''
Jacky Wright Jacky Wright is a British technology executive, chief digital officer and a corporate vice president at Microsoft US. Biography Jacky Wright was born in London to Jamaican parents and grew up there in Tottenham. Her family moved to the US when ...
is chief digital officer and a corporate vice president at Microsoft US. She has been named the most influential Black person in the UK, ranking at the top of the annual Powerlist in 2022. Dame Sharon White (businesswoman), Sharon White, the first ever female chair of John Lewis Partnership, she topped the 2023 Powerlist. In 2004, Greater London Authority Economics produced a report to examine the economic contribution black businesses made to London’s economy. The report found that black businesses made up 4% of all London's businesses, provided over 70,000 jobs and had a total turnover of almost £4.5 billion. Businesses owned by Black Britons generate more than £10bn for the UK each year, according to the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME).


In politics


Houses of Parliament

People of black African and Caribbean ancestry such as Bernie Grant, Valerie Amos, Valerie, Baroness Amos, David Lammy, Dawn Butler, Sir Mark Hendrick and Diane Abbott, as well as Oona King, Oona, Baroness King and Paul Boateng, Paul, Lord Boateng who are of mixed race, have made significant contributions to British politics and trade unionism. Boateng became the United Kingdom's first biracial cabinet minister in 2002 when he was appointed as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Abbott became the first black female Member of Parliament when she was elected to the British House of Commons, House of Commons in the 1987 United Kingdom general election, 1987 general election. Bill Morris, Baron Morris of Handsworth, Bill, Lord Morris was elected general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1992 and became the first black leader of a major British trade union. He was knighthood, knighted in 2003, and in 2006 he took a seat in the House of Lords as a working life peer, Baron Morris of Handsworth. The Trinidadian cricketer Learie Constantine, Learie, Lord Constantine was ennobled in 1969 and took the title Baron Constantine of Maraval in Trinidad and Nelson in the County Palatine of Lancaster. David Pitt, Baron Pitt of Hampstead, David, Lord Pitt became a member of the House of Lords when he became a Life peer, Life Peer for the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party in 1975. He was also President of the
British Medical Association The British Medical Association (BMA) is a registered trade union for doctors in the United Kingdom. The association does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the General Medical Council. The association's headquar ...
. The first black Conservative Peer was John Taylor, Baron Taylor of Warwick, John, Lord Taylor."Ex-Tory Peer Lord Taylor Jailed for Expenses Fraud"
, BBC News, 31 May 2011.
Valerie Amos became the first black woman cabinet minister and the first black woman to become leader of the House of Lords. Patricia Scotland, Patricia, Baroness Scotland became a Labour life peer in 1997 and became the first female Commonwealth Secretary-General, secretary-general of the Commonwealth of Nations.


See also

* ''100 Great Black Britons'' * Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA) * Black Cultural Archives * Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom ** British African-Caribbean people ** British Black English ** Black people in Ireland ** Black Scottish people ** Black Welsh people ** Mixed (United Kingdom ethnicity category), British mixed race * London Black Revolutionaries


References


External links


200 years of Black British History
Google Arts & Culture
Birmingham Black Oral History Project

The Black Presence in Britain – Black British History
* Onyekachi Wambu
"Black British Literature since Windrush"
BBC, 3 March 2011.
The Scarman Report
into the Brixton Riots of 1981.

into the death of Stephen Lawrence.
Reassessing what we collect website – The African Community in London
History of African London with objects and images
Reassessing what we collect website – Caribbean London
History of Caribbean London with objects and images. {{AmericansinUK Black British people, African diaspora in the United Kingdom Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom Black British culture, Black British history