[TOP: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor BOTTOM: John Richard Archer]
October is Black History Month in the United Kingdom, where this article originates:
University of Liverpool
John Richard Archer (1863-1932)
“Early Black British mayor and a founding member of the Labour Party.” Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald are well-known as the founding fathers of the Labour Party, but the part played by Liverpool-born John Archer is not always remembered. John Richard Archer (1863-1932), was Mayor of Battersea in 1913 and one of Britain’s earliest black mayors.”
“Richard Archer, John’s father, was a Barbadian ship’s steward whilst his mother, Mary Theresa Burns, was Irish born.” “When John was nominated for Progressive candidate for Mayor in Battersea in November, 1913, the black vote was very small indeed.” “When John was elected on 10 November, the Black American activist, W. E. B. Dubois, wrote in his journal, the Crisis, that he '…fears no man, and brooks no insult because of the race to which he is proud to belong.'”
“John was a Pan-Africanist, believing in a common bond between black people everywhere. John was a close friend of the musician Samuel Coleridge Taylor, the composer of ‘Hiawatha’. Both were black activists and members of the African Association formed in 1897 by black students from all over the world. Both John and Samuel were elected as representatives to the first Pan-African Conference at Westminster in July 1900, organised by Henry Sylvester Williams, a Trinidadian.
"They organised a petition to Queen Victoria to consider the plight of ‘the native races’, as they were then called even by the Pan-African Conference! John described the early death of Samuel Coleridge Taylor in September 1912 as 'a blow to the race'”. [Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was an Afro-British composer, conductor and music professor who is profiled at AfriClassical.com]
John Richard Arthur
1863-1932
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Pan-African Conference
African Association
Following the 1998 Windrush events with which we were involved, my husband (Martin Anthony Burrage) and I were guests at a ceremony in Liverpool Town Hall to mark the important legacy of John Archer to our city and nation.
ReplyDeleteAmongst the items on display was a needlework banner about John Archer which included, as I recall (will check again when I can) a quotation from Samuel Coleridge Taylor's 'Hiawatha' score.