People, Places, Events   

In his early teens Sheppard went to work as a miner in the Ferndale and Maerdy area of the Rhondda Valleys, and became one of the rare group of Black miners, men who were almost written out of the history of the Welsh coalfields.

In Dahomey: An all black cast Musical Comedy is a landmark 1903 American musical comedy described by theatre historian Gerald Bordman as "the first full-length musical written and played by blacks to be performed at a major Broadway house." It features music by Will Marion Cook, book by Jesse A. Shipp, and lyrics by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. It was written by Jesse A. Shipp as a satire on the American Colonization Society's back-to-Africa movement of the earlier nineteenth c

Marson returned to London in 1938 to continue work on the Jamaican Save the Children project that she started in Jamaica, and also to be on the staff of the Jamaican Standard. In March 1940, Marson published an article entitled "We Want Books - But Do We Encourage Our Writers?" in Public Opinion, a political weekly, in an effort to spur Caribbean nationalism through literature. In 1941, she was hired by the BBC Empire Service to work on the programme Calling the West Indies

Una Maud Victoria Marson: Part 1 (6 February 1905 – 6 May 1965) was a Jamaican feminist, activist and writer, producing poems, plays and radio programmes. She travelled to London in 1932 and became the first black woman to be employed by the BBC during World War II. In 1942, she became producer of the programme Calling the West Indies, turning it into Caribbean Voices, which became an important forum for Caribbean literary work.

Evelyn Mary Dove (11 January 1902 – 7 March 1987) was a British singer and actress, who early in her career drew comparisons with Josephine Baker. Of Sierra Leone Creole and English parentage, Dove is recognized as a "trailblazing performer": in 1939, she made history as the first black singer to feature on BBC Radio, building a solid reputation not only through her work in Britain but also internationally, travelling to France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Hunga

Keith Emerson noted her influence on his playing in an interview: "I've always been into ragtime. In England—and I'm sure Rick Wakeman would concur—we loved Winifred Atwell, a fantastic honky-tonk and ragtime player.” Atwell was also a skilled interpreter of classical music. On 1 and 2 December 1954, at London's Kingsway Hall, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Stanford Robinson, she made one of the first stereo classical recordings in the UK of a major repe

Una Winifred Atwell: Part 1 (27 February or 27 April 1910 or 1914 – 28 February 1983) was a Trinidadian pianist who enjoyed great popularity in Britain and Australia from the 1950s with a series of boogie-woogie and ragtime hits, selling over 20 million records. She was the first black artist to have a number-one hit in the UK Singles Chart and as of 2023, remains the only female instrumentalist to do so.

Carleen de Sözer born in Birmingham, England in the late seventies her only destination was to live the life of an artist. "I create art, firstly for myself i enjoy tapping into that creative space in my imagination that allows me to turn thought into physical pictures. Sharing my art is a natural part of the creative process, we build on everything that exist...a thought, an idea...a feeling. I believe that my art is a re-creation of every visual and thought that i have re

Darcus Howe: Part II 2011 BBC Interview Howe was interviewed by Fiona Armstrong for BBC News on 9 August 2011 at the time of the 2011 England riots. During the interview, Armstrong twice referred to him as "Marcus Dowe", then asked: "You are not a stranger to riots yourself, I understand, are you? You have taken part in them yourself." Howe denied this, saying: "I have never taken part in a single riot. I've been part of demonstrations that ended up in a conflict. Have some