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The title may be wordy by modern standards, but The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African <\/em>was a literary sensation in Georgian Britain. With multiple editions printed in its author\u2019s own lifetime, the memoir tells an extraordinary story of childhood enslavement \u2013 and of emancipation and activism. It was a key text in helping to secure the passing of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which outlawed the slave trade in the British empire. <\/p>\n\n Equiano\u2019s life began in the Kingdom of Benin (in modern-day Nigeria), where he was captured prior to being transported to the Caribbean. Having purchased his own freedom in 1766 and travelled extensively, Equiano permanently settled in London. Here, he became active in the Sons of Africa, a group of freedmen who campaigned for the abolitionist cause. Equiano was a central figure in telling the world about the Zong <\/em>massacre, the mass killing of more than 140 Africans aboard a British slave ship. <\/p>\n\n Born in Bermuda, Mary Prince composed the first memoir of a black female slave to be published in the United Kingdom. Like Olaudah Equiano\u2019s earlier autobiography, The <\/em>History <\/em>of <\/em>Mary <\/em>Prince <\/em>(1831) helped to galvanise support for the abolitionist cause, and was important in the run-up to the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. <\/p>\n\n From a 21st-century perspective, it seems remarkable that Prince ever got the opportunity to share her experiences so widely. Over an eventful life, she was sold multiple times, and spent time working in the salt ponds of the Turks and Caicos Islands, where conditions were notoriously bad. <\/p>\n\n Salvation came when Prince\u2019s fourth owner, John Adams Wood, took her to London in 1828. Here, Prince left the Wood family after meeting abolitionist Thomas Pringle, who edited her memoir. Little is known of her later years, although she may have died in Antigua after returning to the Caribbean to be with her husband. <\/p>\n\n Despite not finding fame as a bare-knuckle pugilist until he reached his 40s, welterweight Bill \u2018The Black Terror\u2019 Richmond was one of his era\u2019s most famous boxers. So tough was he that, aged 51, he took on 27-year-old Tom Shelton and overcame an eye injury to best the younger contender over 23 rounds. <\/p>\n\n It was a late-blooming career that owed much to the soldier Lord Hugh Percy, who saw the teenage Richmond, then enslaved, fight a New York tavern brawl during the American War of Independence. In 1777, Percy arranged for Richmond\u2019s freedom, and Richmond emigrated to England, where he was educated and apprenticed to a cabinetmaker. <\/p>\n\n Richmond was charming and witty, which helped him move in high society. He was an usher at George IV\u2019s coronation and, in the 1820s, ran a pub, where he dispensed boxing advice to the likes of Lord Byron and essayist William Hazlitt. Boxer William Mondrich in the Netflix series Bridgerton<\/em> is based on Richmond.<\/p>\n\n After being captured on the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), Ottobah Cugoano, baptised John Stuart, was transported to Grenada as a teenager. Freedom arrived when his owner, Alexander Campbell, brought Cugoano to England. <\/p>\n\n Working as a servant for artists Richard and Maria Cosway, Cugoano came to the attention of poet William Blake, and even the Prince of Wales learned of his story. Active in the Sons of Africa, Cugoano became a writer, and played a key role in freeing a kidnapped man, Henry Demane, who was due to be shipped to the Caribbean. <\/p>\n\n In 1875, Arthur Wharton left the Gold Coast to attend school in London, where he also later trained as a missionary. But his true calling was as an athlete. In 1886, he ran 100 yards in 10 seconds, later ratified as a world record. <\/p>\n\n Despite his sprinting prowess, it was as a goalkeeper that Wharton found fame, becoming part of the Preston North End team that reached the FA Cup semi-final in 1887. He is believed to have been the world\u2019s first black professional footballer. <\/p>\n\n In 1910, Jamaica-born Harold Moody, who finished top of his class at King\u2019s College London, qualified as a doctor. Because of prejudice he was unable to find a job, so he set up his own practice in Peckham. <\/p>\n\n These experiences played into his decision to found The League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) in 1931, an organisation whose earliest members included future Kenyan president Jomo Kenyatta. The group campaigned against the \u2018colour bar\u2019 in an era when black Britons faced overt prejudice in the workplace, in their social lives, and when trying to find housing. <\/p>\n\n In 1947, Sam Beaver King returned to his native Jamaica from Britain after serving as an RAF engineer. But he couldn\u2019t settle into civilian life, and so, when he saw an advert for tickets aboard the Empire <\/em>Windrush, <\/em>he returned to the UK in 1948. <\/p>\n\n King became a key figure in London\u2019s Caribbean community and was elected mayor of Southwark in 1983. Later, he co-founded the Windrush Foundation and called for the date of the Windrush<\/em>\u2019s arrival to be marked by a public holiday. <\/p>\n\n In November 1969, the Nigerian diplomat Clement Gomwalk parked his Mercedes-Benz outside Desmond\u2019s Hip City, the first black record shop in Brixton, south London. Police pulled Gomwalk from his car and assaulted him. A crowd had gathered to protest and several people were arrested, including teenager Olive Morris. <\/p>\n\n This was a watershed moment in her life as, Morris later recounted, she was threatened with rape, beaten, and subsequently convicted of assaulting a police officer. <\/p>\n\n Radicalised, Morris joined the youth section of the British Black Panthers, a prelude to founding the socialist-feminist Brixton Black Women\u2019s Group. She was active in the squatting movement and, after getting a degree in economics and social sciences, worked at the Brixton Community Law Centre. <\/p>\n\n An inspirational figure who died tragically young of non-Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma, Morris was commemorated on the \u00a31 note of local currency the Brixton Pound. In 1980, poet Linton Kwesi Johnson dedicated Jamaica Lullaby <\/em>to Morris. <\/p>\n\n To those in power in the 1840s, William Cuffay was a dangerous radical, a man who would be banished to Van Diemen\u2019s Land (now Tasmania) after being tried for \u201cconspiring to levy war\u201d against Queen Victoria. So notorious was Cuffay that William Makepeace Thackeray dubbed him a \u201cpore old blackymore rogue\u201d in the poem The <\/em>Three <\/em>Christmas <\/em>Waits <\/em>(1848). <\/p>\n\n So what made the authorities so nervous of a 4ft 11in-tall, Kent-born tailor? It was because Cuffay was a leading light in the Chartist movement, which campaigned for voting reform. In 1848, he helped to organise a massive rally on Kennington Common. Moreover, Cuffay was among Chartists who thought violence might be needed to achieve the movement\u2019s aims. <\/p>\n\n It\u2019s difficult to overstate the importance of Daughters of Africa. <\/em>Published in 1992, it ran to more than 1,000 pages, and collected pieces by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, including oral poetry and works from ancient times. <\/p>\n\n Few would have had the knowledge to assemble such a collection, but the book\u2019s editor Margaret Busby drew on experience accumulated over a trailblazing career. Born in Accra, Gold Coast (now Ghana), she was educated in England and, with her business partner Clive Allison (1944\u2013 2011), set up the publishing company Allison and Busby in 1967. She was the UK\u2019s first African woman book publisher and also its youngest. <\/p>\n\n In a career that has also encompassed writing for radio and the stage, she has, in the words of novelist Zadie Smith, \u201cbeen a cheerleader, instigator, organiser, defender and celebrator of black arts… shouting about us from the rooftops, even back when few people cared to listen\u201d. <\/p>\n\n Opportunities for black thespians in the 19th-century US were limited. So it was that, in 1824, having gained some acting experience in New York, Ira Aldridge decided to emigrate. In Britain, he became a star, renowned for his appearances in Shakespeare plays and becoming the first African-American to manage a British theatre (the Coventry Theatre). <\/p>\n\n Around the time of his death, it was reported Aldridge had planned to tour the US. Although this never happened, he was an inspiration to many African-Americans, and his name was adopted by several amateur acting troupes when news of his passing was circulated. <\/p>\n\n Growing up in working-class Butetown, Cardiff, Betty Campbell was determined to become a teacher. Top of her class, Campbell won a scholarship to the Lady Margaret High School for Girls, but latterly had to overcome huge hurdles to achieve her ambition \u2013 not least falling pregnant during her A-levels. <\/p>\n\n Ultimately, though, as the first black headteacher in Wales, Campbell became a nationally important figure, someone who pioneered teaching children about black history, slavery and apartheid. In 1998, Campbell met Nelson Mandela on his only visit to Wales. <\/p>\n\n Born on a slave ship, the life of writer, composer and abolitionist Ignatius Sancho began in dire circumstances. Aged two, Sancho was taken to England, where he was gifted to three sisters in Greenwich. Here, he encountered the Duke of Montagu (1690\u20131749), who encouraged him to become educated. <\/p>\n\n Working as a servant for the Montagu family, Sancho gained a foothold in society and became a friend to Thomas Gainsborough, who painted his portrait. He then became a shopkeeper in Mayfair, which gave him time to write the works that cemented his reputation. <\/p>\n\n Words: Jonathan Wright <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n From politicians to performers, we shine a light on more than a dozen public figures who deserve to be better known<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":18996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"42","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"42","purple_seq_number":"1","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"1","purple_source_article":"article_42-1.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_42-1.xml","purple_source_issue":"November-2022","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"November-2022","purple_external_id":"November-2022-42-1","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"November-2022-42-1","purple_issue_code":"|0000090402||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000090402||","purple_android_product":"com.im.historyrevealed.113","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.historyrevealed.113","purple_ios_product":"com.im.historyrevealed.113","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.historyrevealed.113","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"a2288b80-d22c-492c-8b11-acb0804789ee","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2022-10-03T13:45:45Z","apple_news_article-theme":"","apple_news_api_id":"d51bc33a-a7d9-4ea0-bcc2-032366a324b1","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2022-10-03T13:45:45Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A1RvDOqfZTqC8wgMjZqMksQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":true,"apple_news_is_preview":true,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_article_theme":"","apple_news_sections":"[]"},"categories":[104],"tags":[55],"apple_news_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages_1141649319-edited-e1664212314386.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistoryrevealed\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"10","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages_1141649319-edited-e1664212314386.jpg",554,372,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages_1141649319-edited-e1664212314386-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages_1141649319-edited-e1664212314386-300x201.jpg",300,201,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages_1141649319-edited-e1664212314386.jpg",554,372,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages_1141649319-edited-e1664212314386.jpg",554,372,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages_1141649319-edited-e1664212314386.jpg",554,372,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages_1141649319-edited-e1664212314386.jpg",554,372,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistoryrevealed\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"From politicians to performers, we shine a light on more than a dozen public figures who deserve to be better 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\n\nMARY PRINCE<\/span> <\/strong>(c1788\u2013after 1833) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/Mary_Prince_Penguin_Classic-672x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/2HTA69T-1024x736.jpg\")
\n\nBILL RICHMOND<\/span> <\/strong>(1763\u20131829) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/BAL_205089-1-822x1024.jpg\")
\n\nOTTOBAH CUGOANO<\/span> <\/strong>(c1757\u2013after 1791) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/137f6028-f127-4647-905e-36b0b03431dc.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n
\n\nARTHUR WHARTON<\/span> <\/strong>(1865\u20131930) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/c9b8a1e6-5467-409e-9c1c-8910614774e8.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n
\n\nHAROLD MOODY<\/span> <\/strong>(1882\u20131947) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/19f743ae-14bb-48f5-b884-e80850b9ccb7.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n
\n\nSAM BEAVER KING<\/span> <\/strong>(1926\u20132016) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/c7f638f9-d7c0-43a3-af5a-926589a1977d.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n
\n\nOLIVE MORRIS<\/span> <\/strong>(1952\u201379) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/10076-935x1024.jpg\")
\n\nWILLIAM CUFFAY<\/span> <\/strong>(1788\u20131870) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/D13148-edited.jpg\")
\n\nMARGARET BUSBY<\/span> <\/strong>(1944\u2013) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/GettyImages-3258669-783x1024.jpg\")
\n\nIRA ALDRIDGE<\/span> <\/strong>(1807\u201367) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/2H5X7FR-712x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n
\n\nBETTY CAMPBELL<\/span> <\/strong>(1934\u20132017) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/3f5751ff-4376-400d-a50c-70e3d05907e1.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n
\n\nIGNATIUS SANCHO<\/span> <\/strong>(c1729\u201380) <\/h3>\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dj9jqhxgw9833.cloudfront.net\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2022\/09\/a397cf70-9e46-470e-95c2-a0e9920511fb.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n
\n\n