Photographer: Zaki Grant (Instagram: @caseusphoto)
Stephen Small, Professor at the Dept of African American Studies, University of California, Berkeley, valued WoW collaborator and author of the Small Talk series, made his in-person debut at WoWFEST to discuss his latest book; In the Shadows of the Big House: Twenty-First-Century Antebellum Slave Cabins and Heritage Tourism in Louisiana (Atlantic Migrations and the African Diaspora). Stephen, in conversation with WoW’s Creative Heritage Project Manager, Janaya Pickett, traced the historical trajectory of plantations and slave cabins since the Civil War and explored what representations of slavery and slave cabins convey about the reconfiguration of the past and the rearticulation of history in the present.
Considering such themes as the role of white ethnic identity in representations of elite whites and the extent and significance of Black voices and Black visions of representations of these plantations, Stephen and Janaya discussed what these sites reveal about social forgetting and social remembering throughout Louisiana and the South. For Liverpool, a city only recently coming to terms with its immeasurable debt to enslaved Africans, and grappling with how to represent its slavery history, the event could not have been more relevant.
Stephen Small was born in Toxteth and moved to the United States in 1984. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and is now a professor in the Department of African Diaspora Studies and Director of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. He researches the history and sociology of Black people across the African diaspora, including the United States, Western Europe, the Caribbean and Brazil. In 2018 he published 20 Questions and Answers on Black Europe and is coauthor of Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums and coeditor of Global Mixed Race, New Perspectives on Slavery and Colonialism in the Caribbean, and Black Europe and the African Diaspora. In June 2023, the University Press of Mississippi published In the Shadows of the Big House: Twenty-First-Century Antebellum Slave Cabins and Heritage Tourism in Louisiana (Atlantic Migrations and the African Diaspora).
Janaya Pickett is WoW’s Creative Heritage Programme Manager. She is a writer, local historian, and facilitator whose career began in 2014 as a volunteer on WoW’s Great War to Race Riots project, playing a key role in developing the hugely successful 1919 Walking Tours. Janaya has performed poetry at spoken word nights across the city, worked as Curator for WoW’s August 2021 installation Merseysounds, event manager for the LCRCA’s Generations for Change, and Project Manager for The Dorothy Kuya Archive Project. Janaya is currently undertaking a history MRes, researching Black Liverpool from the 1940s to 1970s.
Victoria Gallery & Museum Cafe Ashton St, Liverpool L69 3DR
Tuesday 7th May, 7pm
£5
Date: May 7, 2024
Black Music Exhibitions Collection Available to View Throughout October as part of Liverpool’s Black History Month Celebrations - Monday to Wednesday and Saturdays
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WoW have been invited to deliver The National Archives impact seminar and to present WoW’s unique Creative Heritage model and approach to curating archives.
Date: October 3, 2024
1:00 pm
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The Great War to Race Riots tour, delivered since our first Black History Month festival in 2016, explores anti-black race riots that occurred in Liverpool and other seaports across the country in 1919.
Date: October 6, 2024
11:00 am
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The Dorothy Kuya Walking Tour explores the impact of Dorothy Kuya's anti-racist activism in modern Britain as we explore the Liverpool and the L8 area.
Date: October 13, 2024
11:00 am
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Join us in Black History Month for a powerful event featuring a documentary by local filmmaker Bea Freeman, exploring the causes and aftermath of the 1981 Toxteth Riots.
Date: October 16, 2024
7:00 pm
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Your Local Arena special screens Rudies Come Back, the energetic 1980 BBC Arena film made by Jeff Perks right at the moment that 2-Tone was emerging, capturing its unique blend of 1960s blue beat and ska with 1970s reggae, soul and punk.
Date: October 17, 2024
7:30 pm
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The L8 Activism Walking Tour invites you to take a stroll down the beautiful tree-lined Victorian Boulevard and explore the history of Liverpool 8, the traditional home of the black community since the mid 20th century.
Date: October 19, 2024
11:00 am
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The George Garrett Walking Tour explores the life, writings and activism of George Garrett a 'militant advocate of tolerance' who travelled the world and whose work explored the poverty and struggle of the working class in the 1920's and 1930's.
Date: October 20, 2024
11:00 am
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We're thrilled to welcome Diane Abbott and Gary Younge to BHM 24 to discuss Diane's new book: A Woman Like Me
Date: October 23, 2024
7:00 pm
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In Babylon’s Burning author and activist Rick Blackman explores impact and connections between three musical movements
Date: October 24, 2024
7:00 pm
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Join us in remembering and celebrating the impact and legacy of sound system culture in Liverpool, with an evening of discussion, deejays and dancing. Featuring music from the original Strugglers' Sound System, from the days of The Frontline.
Date: October 26, 2024
6:30 pm
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The Liverpool & Slavery Walking Tour was developed and inspired by our Dorothy Kuya Archive Project, in collaboration with National Museums Liverpool. The Tour explores the many sites with direct links to the Transatlantic Slave Trade in Liverpool city centre
Date: October 27, 2024
11:00 am
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Join us for the fourth session of the Writer’s Bloc 2024! IMPORTANT: Please do not turn up to a Writer’s Bloc session without registering and being invited. Numbers are limited and session attendance is by invite only. We are unable to allow entry if you have not been accepted onto the session.
Date: September 6, 2024
11:00 am
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Join us for the fourth session of the Writer’s Bloc 2024! IMPORTANT: Please do not turn up to a Writer’s Bloc session without registering and being invited. Numbers are limited and session attendance is by invite only. We are unable to allow entry if you have not been accepted onto the session.
Date: August 16, 2024
11:00 am
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Join us for the second session of the Writer’s Bloc 2024! We are thrilled to welcome acclaimed Liverpool novelist and poet, Ashleigh Nugent. Ashleigh will be talking about his debut novel, Locks and sharing his journey of turning personal experiences into compelling stories. The session will take place on Friday 14th June at Toxteth Library. Please sign …
Date: June 14, 2024
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Date: May 13, 2024
11:00 am
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Tony Wailey's latest book, Lights Bearing West, is about memory, place and distance, messages sent, delivered, picked up, put down, kept or discarded. Going away, having adventures and coming home, whether these adventures are first hand or tenth hand, is part of everyone’s trilogy in Liverpool – even for those who have never left the river.
Date: May 22, 2024
7:00 pm
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Date: May 23, 2024
7:00 pm
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