Marika Sherwood | |
---|---|
Born | 1937 (age 86–87) |
Occupation(s) | Historian, researcher, educator and author |
Known for | Co-founder of Black and Asian Studies Association |
Marika Sherwood (born 1937) is a Hungarian-born historian, researcher, educator and author based in England. She is a co-founder of the Black and Asian Studies Association.
Sherwood was born in 1937 into a Jewish family living in Budapest, Hungary. With the surviving members of her family (many had died during World War II), she emigrated to Sydney, Australia, in 1948. She was briefly employed in New Guinea (then under Australian control) for a period before moving back to Sydney to attend university as a part-time student. Sherwood eventually emigrated to England with her son after divorcing her husband in 1965, finding employment as a teacher in London. There, she learned of the discrimination faced by Black students in the educational system, which spurred an interest in Sherwood to research the history of the African diaspora. This resolve was strengthened by a five-year period of academic research in Harlem, New York City, from 1980 to 1985.[ citation needed]
Sherwood has a desk, but is not on the staff of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. [1] In 1991, with Hakim Adi and other colleagues she founded what is now known as the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA), in order to encourage research and disseminate information, and to campaign on education issues. This is ongoing.
In 1998, Sherwood published a tribute to her recently deceased friend, the Communist Party of Great Britain member Billy Strachan, in BASA's newsletter. [2]
In 2007, she published After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807. Stephen Shapiro, writing in the Ohio State and Miami University history journal Origins, described the book as "provocative" and "a worthwhile read" for "those interested in British or African history." [3]
In 2010, she was invited to contribute to the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary Colloquium in Accra, convened by the African Union and the Ghanaian government.
Apart from her formal publications listed below, she has also contributed to a number of films, radio programs, and conferences. Sherwood set up Savannah Press, a publisher for some of her books "at cost" prices.
In 2017, Sherwood was planning to give a speech about the treatment of the Palestinians during the University of Manchester's Israel Apartheid Week under the title "You're doing to Palestinians what the Nazis did to me". The Israeli embassy intervened, contacting the university with concerns that the title violated the International Holocaust Remembrance Association's definition of antisemitism, adopted by the UK government. Manchester University censored the title and put conditions on the speech. [4] [5]
She has written nine entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Dusé Mohamed (1866–1945), journalist and playwright; Peter McFarren Blackman (1909–1993), political activist; Robert Broadhurst (1859/60–1948), pan-African nationalist leader; William Davidson (1786–1820), conspirator; George Daniel Ekarte (1896/7–1964), minister and community worker; Nathaniel Akinremi Fadipe (1893–1944), writer and anti-colonialist; Claudia Jones (1915–1964), communist and journalist; Ras Tomasa Makonnen (c. 1900–1983), political activist; and Henry Sylvester Williams (1869–1911), pan-Africanist. [6]
On peoples of African and Asian origins / descent in the UK
On the trade in enslaved Africans, and slavery
On Pan-Africanism / Kwame Nkrumah
On Africa / Africans
On education
On racism
Other
with Kathy Chater), "The Pigou Family Across Three Continents", Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, 28/3, 2005.
Marika Sherwood | |
---|---|
Born | 1937 (age 86–87) |
Occupation(s) | Historian, researcher, educator and author |
Known for | Co-founder of Black and Asian Studies Association |
Marika Sherwood (born 1937) is a Hungarian-born historian, researcher, educator and author based in England. She is a co-founder of the Black and Asian Studies Association.
Sherwood was born in 1937 into a Jewish family living in Budapest, Hungary. With the surviving members of her family (many had died during World War II), she emigrated to Sydney, Australia, in 1948. She was briefly employed in New Guinea (then under Australian control) for a period before moving back to Sydney to attend university as a part-time student. Sherwood eventually emigrated to England with her son after divorcing her husband in 1965, finding employment as a teacher in London. There, she learned of the discrimination faced by Black students in the educational system, which spurred an interest in Sherwood to research the history of the African diaspora. This resolve was strengthened by a five-year period of academic research in Harlem, New York City, from 1980 to 1985.[ citation needed]
Sherwood has a desk, but is not on the staff of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. [1] In 1991, with Hakim Adi and other colleagues she founded what is now known as the Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA), in order to encourage research and disseminate information, and to campaign on education issues. This is ongoing.
In 1998, Sherwood published a tribute to her recently deceased friend, the Communist Party of Great Britain member Billy Strachan, in BASA's newsletter. [2]
In 2007, she published After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807. Stephen Shapiro, writing in the Ohio State and Miami University history journal Origins, described the book as "provocative" and "a worthwhile read" for "those interested in British or African history." [3]
In 2010, she was invited to contribute to the Kwame Nkrumah Centenary Colloquium in Accra, convened by the African Union and the Ghanaian government.
Apart from her formal publications listed below, she has also contributed to a number of films, radio programs, and conferences. Sherwood set up Savannah Press, a publisher for some of her books "at cost" prices.
In 2017, Sherwood was planning to give a speech about the treatment of the Palestinians during the University of Manchester's Israel Apartheid Week under the title "You're doing to Palestinians what the Nazis did to me". The Israeli embassy intervened, contacting the university with concerns that the title violated the International Holocaust Remembrance Association's definition of antisemitism, adopted by the UK government. Manchester University censored the title and put conditions on the speech. [4] [5]
She has written nine entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Dusé Mohamed (1866–1945), journalist and playwright; Peter McFarren Blackman (1909–1993), political activist; Robert Broadhurst (1859/60–1948), pan-African nationalist leader; William Davidson (1786–1820), conspirator; George Daniel Ekarte (1896/7–1964), minister and community worker; Nathaniel Akinremi Fadipe (1893–1944), writer and anti-colonialist; Claudia Jones (1915–1964), communist and journalist; Ras Tomasa Makonnen (c. 1900–1983), political activist; and Henry Sylvester Williams (1869–1911), pan-Africanist. [6]
On peoples of African and Asian origins / descent in the UK
On the trade in enslaved Africans, and slavery
On Pan-Africanism / Kwame Nkrumah
On Africa / Africans
On education
On racism
Other
with Kathy Chater), "The Pigou Family Across Three Continents", Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, 28/3, 2005.