Congratulations to Obama in US Black History Month

– LETTER OF CONGRATULATIONS –

To The Hon Barack Obama, US Senator (Dem. Illinois)
Candidate for President of the United States of America 2008

On behalf of Well-wishers in Britain and Europe

Sir,

We, the undersigned, congratulate you on your brave and history-making candidacy for the US presidency 2008.

Your ideals have deep historical roots in the Age of Liberating Revolutions that signalled the end of the “Old Rule”. Chief among them are, as you will agree, the democratic American Revolution of 1776, France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789, and the successful Haitian Revolution of enslaved Africans in the Western Hemisphere (1791-1804).

If resistance to entrenched power is the watchword of your platform for America’s future, then please accept best wishes from the progressive forces here, including people of African Caribbean, Muslim and Asian heritages. We recognise a similar need in Britain and Europe, as well as America, for equality and justice not exclusion in spheres of life conducive to improved living and harmonious social, racial and religious relations.

If your candidacy is to initiate a new era in international affairs, then we urge you to employ your leadership and diplomatic skills in strategic areas of mutual concern, such as world migration policies that are not against migrants, trade and aid agreements that support sustainable development, and foreign policies that promote peace and humanitarian purposes, not war.

Moreover, there is a desperate need to add your sense of moral purpose, political commitment and vision to popular demands for democracy and freedom and the reconstruction of fraternal relations with Afro-Asian, Latin American and Caribbean peoples.

Furthermore, we believe that your historic bid for the American presidency embodies the need for unity and change in the scope of national policies on both sides of the Atlantic. Your call for beneficial change across America “From Sea to Shining Sea” resonates on these shores from the privileged halls of national Parliaments to the deprived, but aspiring, common people and multi-cultural districts of of Britain and Europe.

Signed on behalf of the supporters of this letter, by

Thomas L Blair, Professor of Sociology
Editor and Publisher of the Chronicleworld
http://www.chronicleworld.org

HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA TO BE FORWARDED TO HIM FOLLOWING  BLACK HISTORY MONTH
For Signatories to be officially counted and recorded, please give a few simple details in the Reply Box.  First say ”I agree to Obama Congratulations Letter”; then give your signed name, e-mail address, and describe your occupation, affiliation, organisation or institution (For Identification Purposes Only).

1. For information, the letter was written following lengthy discussions and published February 14th 2008, during the US Black History Month, in The Chronicleworld Weblog — For Creative renewal of Black Britain & the African Diaspora http://chronicleworld.wordpress.com.
2. Founded in November 1997, the Chronicleworld.org is the oldest independent, social issue, non-profit online journal in Britain and Afro-Europe. 

Chronicleworld honoured

Have you heard the news!!

Chronicleworld.org’s community and cyberaction gain place in British Library’s top 2000 UK websites 

Chronicleword.org, the online journal highlighting the interests of Black British and Afro-Europe communities, has been recognised “as an important representation of British Culture,” by the UK’s leader in “conserving world knowledge,” the British Library.

Founded in November 1997, the Chronicleworld joins 2000 sites selected from more than 5 million UK domain web sites. Curators at the historic national library say the sites are archived “to preserve them for future generations”. 

Chronicleworld editor and publisher Professor Thomas L Blair welcomed this recognition saying “Our selection is an important contribution to the digital recording of the lives of people who are often overlooked and excluded”. 

“Our information-based articles and blogs offer insights into major social problems. The search for solutions to race-ethnic relations, is one of the most important issues facing British society. Cyberaction for beneficial policies is our chosen medium of expression,” says Blair.

Over a decade, readers have benefited from the Chronicleworld’s articles, reports and 1000s of text pages. Furthermore, viewers, researchers and policymakers can link up to digital networks around the globe to easily access information on the Black experience.

This pioneering work is recognised on the British Library’s website. Clicking on http://www.webarchive.org.uk opens an alphabetical directory and choosing the letter ”C” accesses the website Chronicle World – Changing Black Britain.

In addition, Blair explores ways of connecting the potential of the Internet to demands for social justice and equality in the 21^st century, at Cyberaction for Social Change – Thomas L Blair, the website of http://www.thomblair.org.uk/. 

Black Britain and social change

“Change been long coming”:

  

There’s some truth in the saying: “When America coughs, Britain catches a cold”. Barack Obama’s “stand for change” in the US presidential elections has moved the cultural historian Alex Pascall O.B.E. to declare that “Change Been Long Coming” in Britain, too.

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Drawing on his personal collection of thoughts about the ordinary and extra-ordinary aspects of Blacks in Britain, Alex Pascall says, “Blacks today have fought the good fight and stamped their demand for respect in lots of places”.

 We livened up old neighbourhoods
The old housing stock we met have been given new life, Caribbean’s with the ingenuity and pride for the home have transformed the housing culture, thus laying a foundation for their children, something which was not there at all on entry to this country for immigrants of colour. Change has come and more is yet to follow in the racially and ethnically diverse London boroughs such as Islington, Peckham-Lewisham, Camden, Brent, Tottenham and Lambeth.

 Food and marketing
In the past, stores and supermarkets had few Black. Blacks were told that they could not be hired because whites would not want to buy from them. Blacks today set the trends in fashion, the Black barber shops and hairdressers are crowded and the whites are fast moving in to capture a slice of this economy because it’s lucrative.

Putting some sweet stuff in British life
Go to the movies, follow the night life, check out the bars and Caribbean restaurants, watch who comes in and listen to them as they order and you will be amazed to hear them asking for curried goat, sweet potatoes, plantains, and as for ‘jerk’. Well the Notting Hill carnival has it all; not only has the carnival transformed some of the media and police behaviour, it has been a forum for real education. It attracts thousands of Europeans making a pilgrimage annually to sample Black and Caribbean cuisine and ketch up as the saying goes. They come to sap up the atmosphere while hold on to a dish of Ackee and salt fish, and a pint of Red Stripe beer or traditional Mauby juice to wash it down.

Jazzing up the Brits
The music that we met was ‘Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard’ far divorced from the rhythmic variety we were accustomed to. Whites could not dance; they were great at flinging a leg, like the Tiller Girls of London Palladium. Today the beat in London is soulful, and pulsating. The injection of the Black and Caribbean Reggae, Cuban Salsa, Calypso and SOCA has crossed fertilised with the American jazz, and other soul fusions and London is now a haven for clubs where the races “socialise and otherwise”.

 Adding colour and style
We landed in tailor made suits and dresses by seamstresses – a far cry from the British off the peg culture that was rigid and colourless. Photographs of our coming, our weddings and christening of our children are great to look back to. Now our Black British fashions and hair styles shape new innovations in pop culture.

Using gospel to lift the spirit and ease the pain
Today the Christian Churches which blocked us from entering to worship are empty, or sold into the housing market. Others have been bought up by Black and Caribbean people.  Now in urban London, there is a thriving gospel movement where the white folk are coming in to clap and shout hallelujah in the rhythm of true gospel like the Black Americans. 

 Forging a place in the labour market
The Caribbean nurses and transport workers of the past have left the national health and rail services looking for improvement. (Because the authorities chose not to use their creative abilities.) Now, their third generation children have moved into higher, better paying jobs in the public and private sectors.

We can say that the Black and Caribbean presence in London has certainly made a visible and spiritual impact far beyond what the first generation of Caribbean’s who arrived in the windrush of the late forties and fifties had to endure. The Caribbean culture particularly in London and the inner cities has become an integral part of the British economy and urban culture.

Nevertheless, in Britain, as in Barack Obama’s America, there is still a long way to go before the outposts of the African and Caribbean Diaspora can achieve justice and equality of opportunities. 

 “Everywhere I go I hear them saying,
Give time a change is coming
A change is coming, a change is coming
Give time a change is coming
Give time, give time,
We gotta change, we gotta change”
©Alex Pascall (From the song “Give time a change is coming”) ©Alex Pascall Website: www.goodvibes-online.co.uk 

Alex Pascall is a Cultural Historian, Journalist, Broadcaster, Playwright, Composer, Performer and Trade Unionist. Widely known as a cultural griot, Pascall has extensive knowledge and experience of Black and Caribbean cultural lifestyle in Britain. He has worked nationally and internationally in demonstrating the impact of creativity in education.