Black History River Cruise (April 2021)

Your private, double-decker boat will start from the Temple Pier near Temple tube station on the Embankment. Your six-mile round trip includes unobstructed and spectacular views of both sides of the Thames riverbanks. With special historical guests Phyliss Wheatley, General Dumas, Queen-General Yaa Asantewa, Warrior Queen Amanirenas and Olaudah Equiano, not only will you get a unique informed historical commentary as we cruise, but you will hear inspiring true stories from legendary Black resistance leaders. See video below.

The cruise will cover African Romans, ancient African art/engineering, Black Spitfire pilots, lost sugar warehouses, the Ivory trade, African diamonds, African Odysseys on the Southbank, the Apartheid Millenium Wheel, Nigerian oil, 20,000 Black people and their Day of Action, Civil Rights in the UK, Mary Seacole, To Sir With Love, Brown babies and Jim Crow, The Palace of Stolen Goods, West India Docks, Canary Wharf’s African roots, Kings College’s Caribbean connection, Guys Hospital and who really paid for it, the colour bar in nursing, Black Merchant Mariners, the river as a sewer, Black Shakespeare, Tate & Lyle and the Sugar Girls, Barbados and the National Rail Network, the REAL pirates of the Caribbean and much, much more!

On the way back we will be listening to some Lovers Rock and 90s Soul music. Proceeds from this event will go the Black History Walks fundraiser for plaques in honour of five Black historical heroes:

• Dr Harold Moody 1930s Black British Civil Rights leader (Plaque unveiled 13th March 2019 at YMCA Great Russell Street)
• Phyllis Wheatley 1773 child genius, poet, author. (Plaque unveiled 16 July 2019 at Dorsett City Hotel Aldgate)
• Bill Richmond (1800s American/British champion boxer and community leader)
• Tom Molyneaux (1810 American champion boxer who should have been British champion but for cheating)
• Baron Baker (1950s Jamaican and Windrush street-fighter who defended the community out of Toto Bags Blues Club in Notting Hill)

Check Eventbrite for our Black History Bus tours, guided walks, art gallery tours, interactive lectures and movies. Watch out for African Odysseys at the BFI, great Black films every month of the year.

This event is sponsored by Eye London Opticians, 312 Mare Street, Hackney. Eye London in Hackney run by Ghanain Margaret Asare, provides excellent eyecare and eyewear https://www.eyelondonopticians.co.uk/pages/contact-us

All plaques will be erected in association with Nubian Jak Community Trust http://nubianjak.org/category/plaques/

Other coming events from BHW on website www.blackhistorywalks.co.uk