CaribeaNN Parents and the Origins of Northants Black History Project, 1965-87 (Oxford, 2024)

Paper presented at University of Oxford's Midlands History conference on the 8th June 2024.

This presentation illustrates the anti-racism work done in 1970s and 1980s Northamptonshire in response to racism in local schools. In 1973, a survey about Black student aspirations was commissioned by the local authority, later inspiring local Black people to form the West Indian Parents Association [WIPA] - an organisation that advocated for Black children's rights in local schools and educated Black parents on their rights too as parents too.

Their work later overlapped with the convening of the (community-lead) Black History Project [BHP] from around 1986. Beyond a few lines in an out-of-print book, these stories have scarcely been disseminated to the public. Yet, while ‘Windrush’ in popular media remains fixated on major cities, WIPA and BHP offer counter-narratives about Caribbean lives in provincial England.