Cwmni’r Frân Wen, a professional educational theatre company, has produced a new play about Johnny Delaney, who was murdered in 2003 on the outskirts of Ellesmere Port, when a gang of youths reacted towards his Irish accent and attacked him. The theatre project, a Theatre in Education Project (with follow-up workshop and a cross-curricular work
Theme: Managed migration
Rebels and trouble makers
A controversial exhibition of portraits of people, whose courage, bloody mindedness and instinct for rebellion, have enhanced London’s radical tradition, has opened at City Hall. To accompany artist Jolie Goodman’s four portraits – of Walter Wolfgang, Camilla Batmanghelidjh, Helen John and Brian Haw – are specially-commissioned photos from the East London Photographers Group. Doreen Lawrence,
Iconic symbol – too negative!
IRR News has learnt that a university in the Midlands has stopped one of its student societies from using an iconic Black Power symbol on a poster advertising a Black History Month event at the university. The society organising an event for Black History Month hit political censorship when posters designed for the event, which
Remembering Ira Aldridge
Two new publications for young people retrieve the life of Black actor, Ira Aldridge. 2007 marks not just the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade but also the two hundred years since the birth of Ira Aldridge. One of the greatest actors on the British stage, he has been utterly neglected – because
John Berger: truth-sayer in an age of lies
A. Sivanandan welcomes John Berger, who read from a work in progress From A to X (love letters written to a political prisoner serving a life sentence) at an event on 4 October, entitled Against the Great Defeat of the World, to mark thirty-five years since the conception of IRR’s journal, Race & Class. ‘It
Part of the problem or part of the solution?
Why, asks a new report, was the Commission for Racial Equality’s policy shift on multiculturalism not subjected to a full race equality impact assessment? A national charity, the Public Interest Research Unit (PIRU), has published a 279-page report entitled Race Back from Equality questioning why the CRE (whose functions will be taken over next week
Against the great defeat of the world
John Berger, internationally recognised as one of the most influential writers of the last fifty years, is appearing in London next week to give a rare and exclusive reading from his new novel: From A to X. The event, hosted by Race & Class, is taking place on Thursday 4 October at the New Theatre,
Slavery museum opens in Liverpool
An International Museum of Slavery will open in Liverpool this week to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the British slave trade – the first national museum in the world to deal with transatlantic slavery and its legacies. It will open on 23 August, Slavery Remembrance Day 2007, a day that commemorates the uprising
Kala Tara
An important new resource for History, Citizenship and English teachers, based on interviews with former members of Britain’s Asian Youth Movements and fellow activists, explores how Asian communities across Britain successfully resisted racism and fascism in the 1970s and 1980s. Produced as Part of the Second Generation Asians Resisting Racism Project, Kala Tara: a History
Birmingham parents challenge educational underachievement
More than 70 concerned parents, teachers, governors, councillors and local people came together in Digbeth, Birmingham, last week to discuss how to get local schools to do better for their underachieving pupils. The meeting was co-ordinated by mother-of-two Naseem Akhtar, who wanted to see how much community interest there was in an issue she has