A nurse from Brighton General Hospital, 1960s. Courtesy Brighton & Hove Black History

Ahead of DIVERSE SUSSEX a programme of events in Eastbourne during November 2018 honouring the hidden diversity of people in Sussex, we talk to people’s historian Bert Williams (MBE D.lit) of Brighton & Hove Black History about his quest to discover and share BME histories in collections and archives in Brighton and the South East

By now most people are aware of Brighton’s proud connection to soldiers from India during the First World War, their recuperation at the Royal Pavilion and the Chattri memorial on the South Downs that commemorates their sacrifice. But the wider history of Black Minority Ethnic (BME) lives in Brighton and East Sussex is less well known – and they would have remained so were it not for the efforts of Bert Williams, who began by making pamphlets and graduated to sharing stories of the black experience in Brighton via Facebook pages, a dedicated website and through walking tours of the city.

Bert came to England from Jamaica in 1960 at the age of 16. He served in the RAF and then worked for the NHS until his retirement when he chaired Mosaic, a local group supporting black and mixed-race families. In 2002 he co-launched Brighton and Hove Black History and helped set up the Chattri Memorial service, to formally commemorate the Indian soldiers.

But it was a conversation with a child that ignited his passion for black histories.

“When Mosaic first received some money from the National Lottery to help us get an office I asked the children: “if we had an office what would you like to see in there?”, he says, “and this little kiddie around nine years old, a mixed race kiddie like me, said he would like to know more about his history and his heritage.

“All I could tell him about was my experience in Jamaica and the like. I just didn’t know.”

Indian soldiers convalescing at the Royal Pavilion during WWI.

Haile Selassie on the West Pier, Brighton © Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.

This was 1995 and Bert decided to have a look in the archives to see what he could find about local black history. “I was told there was no black history in Brighton,” he says, “but the deeper I looked the more I found. I’ve even found Haile Selassi sitting on Brighton Pier!”[…]