INSPIRATIONAL BLACK PEOPLE DAVE • David Orobosa Omoregie (born 5 June 1998), known professionally as Dave or Santan Dave, is a British rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. • Dave's debut album Psychodrama (2019) was met with widespread critical acclaim and debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, having the biggest first week streams for a British rap album. It went on to win the Mercury Prize and the Brit Award for Album of the Year. He made his acting debut in the third season of the Netflix series Top Boy, which was released in September 2019. • Dave was born David Orobosa Omoregie on 5 June 1998 in the Brixton area of South London, the youngest of three sons born to Nigerian parents. His father is a pastor and his mother a nurse. He was raised in nearby Streatham, where he began composing music at an early age, regularly writing lyrics in his early teens, even before engaging in production after his mother gave him a piano when he was 14. • Dave Omoregie attended St Mark's Academy, a Church of England school in Mitcham, and, later, Richmond upon Thames College in Twickenham, where he studied law, philosophy, and ethics while also completing an additional module in sound design and politics. He secured a place at De Montfort University in Leicester to study law but never attended, choosing instead to focus on his musical career. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlxW24AF1lc DIANE ABBOTT Diane Julie Abbott (born 27 September 1953) is a British politician who served as the Shadow Home Secretary in the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn from 2016 to 2020. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987. As a member of the Labour Party, she has held various positions in successive Shadow Cabinets; she was the country's first black female MP and is the longest-serving black MP in the House of Commons. Born in Paddington to a British Jamaican family, Abbott studied History at Newnham College, Cambridge. She worked in the civil service and as a reporter for Thames Television and TV-am before becoming a press officer for the Greater London Council. Joining Labour, she was elected to Westminster City Council in 1982 and then as an MP in 1987, being re-elected in the 1992, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections. She has faced disproportionate sexism and racism as a public figure, individually receiving almost half of all abusive tweets directed at women MPs during the 2017 election campaign. Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr. (born 26 July 1993), known professionally as Stormzy, is a British rapper, singer and STORMZY songwriter. Stop at 1:41 Stormzy won Best Grime Act at the 2014 and 2015 MOBO Awards and was named as an artist to look out for in the BBC's Sound of 2015 list. His debut album, Gang Signs & Prayer (2017), was the first grime album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart and won British Album of the Year at the 2018 Brit Awards. In 2019, Stormzy achieved his first UK number-one single with "Vossi Bop" and his headline appearance at the 2019 Glastonbury Festival was widely praised; he wore a Union Jack stab vest designed by Banksy, in light of the rise in knife crime in London.[10] His second album, Heavy Is the Head, was released on 13 December 2019.[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sune w_g6xDQ Stormzy achieved six A*s, three As and five Bs on his GCSEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8xM6jY3Ie4 MALORIE BLACKMAN Malorie Blackman OBE (born 8 February 1962) is a British writer who held the position of Children's Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults. She has used science fiction to explore social and ethical issues. Her critically and popularly acclaimed Noughts and Crosses series uses the setting of a fictional dystopia to explore racism. Her book "Pig Heart Boy" sold out within a week of publishing it. Malorie has written more than 60 Blackman was born in Clapham, London Her children's books, including novels and short parents were both from Barbados. At school, story collections, and also television scripts she wanted to be an English teacher, but she and a stage play.. Her work has won over 15 grew up to become a systems awards. programmer instead. She earned an HNC at Thames Polytechnic and is a Interesting fact! A series for Malories book graduate of the National Film and Television Noughts and Crosses was released in March School. and Stormzy played the role of Kolawale. She married Neil Morrison in 1992 and their daughter was born in 1995. OLAUDAH EQUIANO • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JJ312vszHk Equiano was an African writer whose experiences as a slave prompted him to become involved in the British abolition movement. In his autobiography, Olaudah Equiano writes that he was born in the Eboe province, in the area that is now southern Nigeria. He describes how he was kidnapped with his sister at around the age of 11, sold by local slave traders and shipped across the Atlantic to Barbados and then Virginia. Apart from the uncertainty about his early years, everything Equiano describes in his extraordinary autobiography can be verified. In Virginia he was sold to a Royal Navy officer, Lieutenant Michael Pascal, who renamed him 'Gustavus Vassa' after the 16th-century Swedish king. Equiano travelled the oceans with Pascal for eight years, during which time he was baptised and learned to read and write. While working as a deckhand, valet and barber for King, Equiano earned money by trading on the side. In only three years, he made enough money to buy his own freedom. Equiano then spent much of the next 20 years travelling the world, including trips to Turkey and the Arctic. In 1786 in London, he became involved in the movement to abolish slavery. He was a prominent member of the 'Sons of Africa', a group of 12 black men who campaigned for abolition. In 1789 he published his autobiography, 'The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African'. THE WIND RUSH GENERATION • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4SIP7EZze4 Between 1948 and 1970, nearly half a million people moved from the Caribbean to Britain, which in 1948 faced severe labour shortages in the wake of the Second World War. The immigrants were later referred to as "the Windrush generation". Working age adults and many children travelled from the Caribbean to join parents or grandparents in the UK or travelled with their parents without their own passports. On 22 June the UK marks Windrush Day, celebrating the arrival of the Empire Windrush in Britain. In 1948, hundreds of people from the Caribbean boarded the ship and travelled to Tilbury Docks in Essex. With them they brought an explosion of dance, art, writing and music which would transform British culture. There was no shortage of jobs in industries such as National Rail and the NHS, and public transport recruited almost exclusively from Jamaica and Barbados. But, despite the invitation, Caribbean people were often met with intolerance from large parts of the white population. The first Windrush arrivals were often denied accommodation and access to some shops, pubs, clubs and even churches. Anthony Joseph explained," politically, the impact of the Windrush Generation’s arrival expanded the definition of what Britain was.” BISHOP WILFRED WOOD, THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND’S FIRST BLACK BISHOP Wilfred Denniston Wood KA (born 15 June 1936) was Bishop of Croydon from 1985 to 2003 (and the first area bishop there from 1991), the first black bishop in the Church of England. He came second in the "100 Great Black Britons" list in 2004. Born in Barbados to Wilfred Coward and Elsie Elmira Wood, Wood initially planned a career in Barbados politics, but felt called to the priesthood and entered Codrington College. He was ordained a deacon on the island, then as a priest in St Paul's Cathedral in 1962, first serving as curate at St Stephen's Church, Shepherd's Bush. “When I become Bishop of Croydon in 1985, it was a big occasion because I was then becoming the first ever black Bishop in the Church of England. At the service at St. Paul’s Cathedral, which holds 2 900 [people], there was not enough room, as people had come from all over the world – mostly black [people] were in attendance – and there are 49 bishops who took part in the service. Actually, when my appointment was announced, I received 703 letters of congratulations and well wishes. It was a great day.” In 2000, another great honour was placed upon the Bishop, as Queen Elizabeth II appointed him Knight of St. Andrew (Order of Barbados), for his contribution to race relations in the United Kingdom and general contribution to the welfare of Barbadians living here. FRANK ARTHUR BAILEY Born in Guyana, Frank came to England in 1953 as a political activist, joining the West Indian Standing Conference. Whilst as a member of WISC, he heard about the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), to which a representative explained that Black people ‘were not employed by the fire service’. Regardless of the claims, Frank Bailey applied and joined West Ham Fire Brigade in 1955 where he was accepted and served at Silvertown Fire Station, making Frank the first full time Black firefighter in England. Frank was an active trade unionist and became branch secretary at his station before leaving in 1965 to become a social worker and the first Black legal advisor at Marylebone Magistrates Court, specialising his work with Black youths.