Discovering our past through walks in the streets around us
Black History Walks founder reveals how Islington is home to one of the most fascinating civil rights stories of all
Friday, 2nd October — By Rufus MacRae
Oliver Tambo [Rob C Croes (ANEFO)]
BLACK History Walks has been transforming London’s streets into a chronicle of the Black history that is embedded in our past.
Tony Warner, BHW’s founder, has been peeling back the layers of these stories for over two decades, many of which are far closer to home than we realise.
One such story is of Dr Harold Moody, a Jamaican doctor and top student at King’s College, who was deprived of work purely due to his race.
Subsequently, Dr Moody set up his own practice in Peckham, becoming the first Black doctor of the area.
Before the NHS existed, Dr Moody was delivering free healthcare to working-class patients, all while playing a part in civil rights campaigning.
“He was doing the things we know about Martin Luther King,” Mr Warner tells me, “but doing it in London, 20 years earlier.”
Billy Waters and Tom Molineaux
Camden’s history is no exception. Billy Waters, a Black busker and amputee, played the fiddle outside the Adelphi Theatre after being denied his military pension, despite losing his leg during service in the Royal Navy.
Bill Richmond, a Black American boxer, ran his own gym, training the best in the city. Black History Walks has been leading the campaign for a blue plaque to honour him and his protégé, Tom Molineaux, which will be the first plaque dedicated to a Black Londoner in the area.
Islington is home to one of the most fascinating civil rights stories of all. Oliver Tambo, president of the ANC, organised the UK’s resistance from a base at Angel, recruiting young volunteers, much of the time at the Arsenal football grounds, to smuggle information into apartheid South Africa.
“It is the depth and the proximity,” Mr Warner says. “This is what people most overlook when it comes to London’s Black history.
“Wherever you go in London, this history is right there.”
With a Trafalgar Square plaque in progress, a 20th-anniversary archive documentary, and an abundance of compelling walks, Black History Walks is going strong and encouraging Londoners to discover the history ingrained in the streets they thought they knew.
