Black Europeans and Caribbean Views African ancestry of well-known Europeans revealed

Caribbean Views and Black Europeans, two new virtual exhibitions created by writer and broadcaster Mike Phillips, will be launched on the British Library's website www.bl.uk on 2 November 2005.

Following an invitation from the British Library to curate a virtual exhibition on a topic of his choice, Mike Phillips selected maps, manuscripts, printed books, and newspapers relating to the British West Indies from the Library's Collect Britain website. These items form the basis for Caribbean Views and are accompanied by Mike's personal responses and reflections that conjure up a vivid picture of life in the English-speaking Caribbean during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Using the themes of sugar, slavery and the making of the West Indies, Caribbean Views explores the African slave trade and the contrasting lives of plantation owners and plantation life as experienced by the slave population. The experiences of former slave Mary Prince are sharply contrasted against the journal of Maria, Lady Nugent, wife of the Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Jamaica, who lived in the Caribbean at the same time. Maria, Lady Nugent's journals talk about a life of relative ease with a constant round of social engagements, dancing, and carriage rides in the mountains. Mary Prince's experiences are chronicled following her escape from her owner, John Wood, in 1828. Mary Prince arrived in England where her cause was taken up by the Anti-Slavery Society. Her story, The History of Mary Prince, published in 1831, detailed horrific brutality at the hands of her owner and was the first substantial account of life as an enslaved woman. The final part of the exhibition looks at the eventual approach to the abolition of the slave trade.

Caribbean Views can be viewed at:
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/galleries/caribbeanviews/index.html

Drawing on items in the British Library and other collections such as the Royal College of Music and Wandsworth Local History Service, Mike's second exhibition, Black Europeans, features five people of African descent who made a contribution to the mainstream of European culture and society: Alexander Pushkin, Alexandre Dumas, George Polgreen Bridgetower, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and John Archer. Mike's essays on each of these individuals explores how they were all aware of their mixed backgrounds but also regarded themselves as part of a European nation and thought of their work as a contribution to their own sector of the culture of Europe and the world. The essays go on to discuss how each of the figures highlighted in Black Europeans have been generally accepted to be an important part of Europe's cultural heritage to the point where most people ignore, or have forgotten about, the 'black' element of their identity and its significance in their lives and work.

Black Europeans can be viewed at:
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/blackeuro/homepage.html

In September 2004 Mike facilitated Exhibiting Diversity, a workshop hosted by the Library for the museum, library and archive sector. Exhibiting Diversity aimed to kickstart a campaign of debate and action intended to encourage new thinking and new models, reflecting not only the diversity of our audiences, but also the diversity of their thoughts and aspirations. To build on this initiative the British Library invited Mike to be a guest curator of a virtual exhibition on a topic of his choice. The results were Caribbean Views and Black Europeans. Mike Phillips said:

"This is a groundbreaking exhibition and a first for the British Library. Caribbean Views and Black Europeans are a complex and radical take on identity which make a fascinating and thought-provoking contribution to our current debates."

For further information and images, contact Victoria Main at the British Library Press Office: +44 (0)20 7412 7112 or Victoria.Main@bl.uk.

Notes for Editors

Mike Phillips was born in Georgetown, Guyana, and grew up in London. He was educated at the University of London (English), the University of Essex (Politics), and at Goldsmiths College London (Education). He worked for the BBC as a journalist and broadcaster before becoming a lecturer in media studies at the University of Westminster.

Mike has written full-time since 1992. Best-known for his crime fiction, his most recent novel, A Shadow of Myself (2000), is the first of a trilogy set in Eastern Europe. Mike Phillips co-wrote Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain (1998) to accompany a BBC television series. His most recent book, London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain (2001), is a series of interlinked essays and stories. Mike writes for the Guardian, and is cross-cultural curator at the Tate. He is also a trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It provides world-class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. Further information is available on the Library's website at www.bl.uk.

Collect Britain is the British Library's largest digitisation project to date. The Collect Britain website - www.bl.uk/collectbritain - contains over 90,000 images and sounds selected from the Library's world-renowned historical collections. The site takes users on a journey through time and place using material sourced from the Library's huge resources of maps, books, topographical drawings, stamps, photographs, newspapers, music and sound which the British Library preserves on behalf of the nation.