People, Places, Events   

Hackney, as a borough, celebrates Black culture and history all year round. By celebrating these stories, theatres like the Hackney Empire can continue to bring Arts programmes that can not only unmask, repair and prevent the hidden wounds of racial trauma on Black and the Global Majority children and families in Hackney; but also, share and celebrate African and African-Caribbean heritage and culture in Hackney and around the world.

Patricia Gallan, QPM (Queen’s Police Medal), is a Non-Executive Director at HMRC. Patricia Gallan is a former British police officer who served as Assistant Commissioner Specialist Crime and Operations of the Metropolitan Police in London, making her the highest-ranking black woman in British policing history.

St Agnes Place was a squatted street in Kennington, south London, which resisted eviction orders for more than 30 years. When a number of derelict houses were scheduled for demolition to extend Kennington Park in 1969, squatters occupied the properties and a High Court injunction prevented the demolition.

Joy Gardner was born Joy Burke in Long Bay Beach, Jamaica, in May 1953, Her mother, Myrna Simpson, emigrated to the United Kingdom from Jamaica – then still a British colony – in 1961, with the intention of sending for her child once she had achieved some financial stability, a common and accepted practice at the time. Simpson subsequently became a British citizen. Prior to 1981, Gardner would have had the right to British citizenship through her mother, but changes to immigr