The chair of Bristol’s Ujima radio station says she would like to see people delving into a pre-Columbus history of African heritage people during Black History Month. Reparations campaigner Jendayi Serwah, who presents Glocal on the radio station every Friday lunchtime, believes that it is important to move beyond the ‘colonial and post-colonial era’ when looking at the history of people of African descent.
Jendayi, who grew up in Eastville in the 1970s, said that she learned a lot about her African roots from the local Rastafari movement which helped her to form a sense of identity which she believes is not the case for young people of African heritage growing up in Bristol today. “We as African people are the first people of the planet with thousands of years of history and thousands of years of contributions to civilisation before Greece and Rome and such places existed but that’s not promoted during this month,” explained Jendayi.
Jendayi, who is currently part of the team at Bristol Legacy Foundation, plans to start a local African Heritage Centre of Excellence as part of her work on reparatory justice. The Bristol Legacy Foundation launched several city wide reparatory justice initiatives back in March, which aim to look at ‘Bristol’s history, racial justice and the future for African heritage communities in our city.’
Jendayi told Bristol Live: “Increasing a positive self concept is important but also to demystify some of the propaganda, the socialisation, conditioning that we’ve had around Africa, what it is and who we are. We are always shown very negative images about our homeland and our history.
“Even Black History Month is confined to a colonial and post-colonial era, the last 500 years. Part of our story and the consequences of our history is a strong dissociation with our motherland, our powerbase and our ancestral home.
“When you think about a people who forcibly had their names taken away from them, were not able to practise their culture, sing or speak their language or use their instruments, it does a lot for your identity and how you see yourself. Pan-Africanism is a movement that speaks to a borderless Africa which governs itself and feeds itself, defends itself and has an economy which puts itself first, has resources in the land in the ground.
“I was blessed not to be brought up in a Christian household because Christianity really shut down your connection to your history and your heritage. In the 1970s there was a vibrant, strong Rastafari movement in Bristol that shaped me in my sense of identity and pride in who I am and my realisation of my Africanness which has evolved over the years.
“If you were a child in the 70s and your parents were staunchly Christian, you couldn’t play reggae music in the house. Reggae music had a lot of messages about culture, identity and Africa and really painted a different picture to what the media was giving you so that was part of my educational process and it also talked about political issues so that was my awakening. I wouldn’t define myself as a Rasta now but certainly as a pan-Africanist.
“Rastafari was a very prevalent thing, you had people who identified with it and sympathisers who were around the movement. You had places like Inkworks that became Kuumba, that was one of the staunch bases.
“Where I grew up, the Mill Youth Centre was very central to my development, that was around from the 70s and closed down in around 2012. You had youth workers that looked like you, understood you and raised you in the same way that your parents would.
“We have not been able to sustain the kind of things that would be there to anchor our young people in their identity and culture. What we have has either been stripped away through funding or other means.”
While Jendayi regularly addresses issues of African history and culture in her show Glocal on Ujima every Friday from 12-2pm, she hopes that through her project to build Zenzele Village will be a way of providing an autonomous self-repair community for those of African heritage living in and around Bristol.
Jendayi added: “We are looking to acquire land to serve our communities in a loving and indigenous way. When you talk about inclusion for us, that’s an act of inclusion because that’s an institution that’s going to address our needs in terms of health and education from our own African-centred indigenous perspectives.”