Today was a very powerful and eye-opening day. We attended a Black Heritage lecture and walking tour through Birmingham led by an amazing founder of Black Heritage Walks, Marcia. She was not only incredibly knowledgeable but also honest, bold, and deeply engaging. She told the hard truths without sugar-coating them and used her great sense of humour to keep us grounded, even when discussing heavy topics. Her ability to connect the dots between past and present made the experience unforgettable. The experience was both deeply educational and emotionally impactful, connecting the city’s industrial past with the legacy of British imperialism, slavery, and racism that still shapes the present.
The day began with a lecture exploring how Birmingham’s history is deeply entangled with the transatlantic slave trade. We learned that the city’s manufacturing industries, particularly companies that produced guns, steamboats, metal goods, and especially manilla bands, played a major role in facilitating slavery. Manilla bands, a type of metal bracelet, were used as currency to trade for people in West Africa. These goods were central to the slave trade, and it was shocking to realize how normal and accepted this process was. I did not realize how instrumental Birmingham was in the trade. In fact, it was the manufacturing industry in Birmingham that made it all possible and expanded Britain into the British Empire, also consequently putting Brimingham on the map. While this industry was led by certain people and it is easy to just point the finger at them Marcia emphasized that everyone was complicit, notjust a few powerful people, but a whole society built on and benefitting from enslavement.
After the lecture, we were fortunate enough to hear from a member of the Windrush generation, who shared her powerful personal story. She spoke about how Britain invited people from the West Indies to help rebuild the country after WWII, only to treat them with hostility and discrimination once they arrived. Her words were heartbreaking and eye-opening, a reminder of how racism didn’t end with the abolition of slavery but simply evolved. It was horrifying to hear about how they were treated and that even recently they are still facing struggles of racism and not being accepted as members of the country. The mistreatment of the Windrush generation is part of a long, ongoing struggle against the legacies of colonialism and white supremacy.
After a lunch break, Marcia led us on a walking tour all around Birmingham. During the tour we saw many different buildings and statues that represent or were part of this difficult past. We saw the building where some of the brass from this time was manufactured, saw some displays in an art museum representing this time, and saw statues of many of the contributing people to this industry. Marcia explained to us that she does not believe that these statues should be taken down. She does not want to leave them up because she believes we should revere them, but rather because they are an important part of our past and we need to educate people and share the real truth about everything that has happened. I thought this was a very powerful message because it is so important to notary to shove down and forget the horrors of the past, but instead we must learn from it and never repeat it.
We also learned that many American civil rights activists were instrumental in influencing the movement here in the UK. The international solidarity between civil rights leaders helped inspire action and awareness on both sides of the Atlantic. Today wasn’t just about looking at the past, it was about understanding how deeply that past lives on today , and what our role is in challenging it moving forward.
