New Thinking: African Europeans; Fidel Castro & African leaders; WEB Du Bois

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2020

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

From Roman emperor Septimius Severus to Senegal's Signares to the ten days in Harlem that Fidel Castro used to link up with African leaders at the UN, through to the missed opportunity to enshrine racial equality in post war negotiations following World War I; Olivette Otele, Simon Hall and Jake Hodder share their research findings with New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar.

Olivette Otele is Professor of the History of Slavery at the University of Bristol and Vice-President of the Royal Historical Society. Her book African Europeans: An Untold History is published on 29 October 2020. Simon Hall is Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds. His book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s is out now. Jake Hodder is Assistant Professor in the School of Geography at Nottingham University and has published articles on Black Internationalism and the global dynamics of race. New Generation Thinker Christienna Fryar runs the MA in Black British History at Goldsmiths, University of London

You can find Catherine Fletcher talking about Alessandro de Medici in this Essay for Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nrv7k Robin Mitchell discusses her researches into Ourika, Sarah Baartman and Jeanne Duval in a Free Thinking episode called How we talk about sex and women's bodies https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f5n6 The Early Music Show on Radio 3 looks at the life of Joseph Boulogne de Saint Georges https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0801l4g The Shadow of Slavery discussed by Christienna Fryar, Katie Donington, Juliet Gilkes Romero and Rosanna Amaka https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f7d5 Slavery Stories in the fiction of Esi Edugyan and William Melvin Kelley https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001bch What Does a Black History Curriculum Look Like ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kpl5 Johny Pitts looks at Afropean identities with Caryl Phillips https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005sjw

This episode of Free Thinking is put together in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI as one of a series of discussions focusing on new academic research also available to download as New Thinking episodes on the BBC Arts & Ideas podcast feed. You can find the whole collection here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03zws90

Producer: Karl Bos

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps
0:21.2	it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream
0:26.1	van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.
0:32.1	Hello, I'm Christina Fryer, and today we're talking about black history from the Romans to the
0:36.8	present as part of our new thinking strand of the BBC Arts and Ideas podcast.
0:42.6	October is Black History Month in Britain, and this year it comes after a summer marked by the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has reminded us of the still unsettled legacies of slavery and colonialism and has drawn attention
0:55.5	to the refusal of so many nations to fully welcome people of African descent into the body
1:00.2	politic. Today I'm talking with three historians whose research focuses on the history of black
1:05.8	people in Europe, legacies of slavery, and the power of black internationalist politics.
1:11.7	Later, we'll hear from Simon Hall and Jake Hutter about moments in the 20th century when racial equality took center stage at major international diplomatic gatherings.
1:21.7	But first, I am joined by Professor Olivet Othelli, who was professor of the history of slavery at the University of Bristol,
1:28.7	independent chair of Bristol's commission on race equality, and vice president of the Royal Historical
1:34.0	Society. She's researching the involvement of the city of Bristol and the university in the
1:39.2	transatlantic slave trade. She's written a new book called African Europeans and Untold History, which tells
1:45.4	the story of Europeans of African descent from the Roman Empire to the present.
1:50.0	Olivet, welcome. Why do you use that term specifically?
1:54.2	Many reasons, really, because when you talk about Africa, it conjures up a certain number of
1:59.5	things and images, same for Europe. a certain number of things and images.
2:02.1	Same for Europe.
2:04.8	So people are placed in geographical locations.
2:06.9	That means something to many people. So you're either African or either European, but you definitely can't be both.
2:11.5	In the 21st century, you're black British, you're Afro-German and all the rest of it.
	...

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