Today has been such an educational day all around! We walked over to BCU and started off the morning with a lecture from Marcia and then followed that one up with one from Nurse Joan. Both of these women are highly intelligent in their fields, I could listen to them talk for hours. Marcia is a member of the Black Heritage Walks Network in Birmingham. This is a group dedicated to educating the community about the history of black people and their part of Birmingham’s overall history and culture. This group was founded 8 years ago by herself and a few of her friends. In Marcia’s lecture she covered a lot of information that has to pertain to how the industries got started by the slave trade. The Africans used manilla bands as a form of their currency and when word got out to the white peoples in Birmingham, they made fake bands made out of brass in the building that is now called ‘The Brass house”. These counterfeit bands were them sold to the African tribe and in exchange the white peoples received twenty African people from another tribe. This sort of trade led to the formation of slavery. There was also a Lunar Society where industrialist regularly met between the years of 1765 and 1813 and they discussed the condition of society and how things are changing. There was not a topic that was off limits for that group of people. This society was founded in 1765 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt. Boulton was a manufactuer of iron goods such as shackles, chains and iron collars, and Watt was the inventor of steam engine. Marcia also talked about Samuel Galton and Josiah Wedgwood, both were advocates of anti- slavery campaigns. This lecture was so informational and I feel like everyone who lives in Birmingham should learn about the history their city from the wonderful Miss Marcia.

After the lecture and grabbing a quick lunch, we made our way outside for the walking tour through the city. The first stop of the walk was at the Joseph Sturge statue outside of the Delta Hotels. This statue is representative of the found freedom of the Jamaican communities that were enslaved and carted over to Birmingham. He built some of the first free houses in Jamaica for the now free individuals who had to start over. In addition to building these homes he also sent over large amounts of money to benefit these individuals. In 1839, Sturge founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. One of our next stops was at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery where Marcia led us around and thoroughly explained the deeper historical roots of some of the items in the museum. When we finished our walk, we all grabbed dinner at Jamaya in Birmingham City Centre. There we had delicious jerk chicken and talked about how much fun we all had today learning more about the city. Tomorrow we shall drive out to Oxford and learn about that. I am super excited.