Catherine Ross (born 1951) is a British educator and museum director. Originally from Saint Kitts, Ross founded Museumand, a "museum without walls" celebrating British African-Caribbean people's contributions to the United Kingdom, in 2015.
Catherine Ross was born on Saint Kitts in 1951. [1] [2] [3] At age 7, in 1958, she came to the United Kingdom as a member of the Windrush generation, and settled with her family in Nottingham. [1] [2] [4] [5]
After a career as an English teacher, Ross became involved in working to educate British descendants of her fellow Windrush generation members about their Caribbean heritage. [1] [6] [7] She was inspired after seeing her students struggling with their identities and dealing with low self-esteem. [7]
In 2015, she founded SKN Heritage Museum, now renamed Museumand: The National Caribbean Heritage Museum. [1] [6] [8] She works as the director of the Nottingham-based "museum without walls," the first in the U.K. to celebrate Caribbean heritage. [2] [4] [5] [8] The museum's collection in based on artifacts that Ross compiled relating to Caribbean culture and the Windrush history. [7] [9]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ross and her daughter, Lynda-Louise Burrell, wrote the book 70 Objeks, which shared knowledge from the Windrush generation for future generations. [4] [10] In 2023, the two women started a podcast called Objeks & Tings, aiming to share Caribbean culture and stories. [1] [4] Ross has also hosted similar dialogues on the local TV show Caribbean Conversations. [6]
Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The territory consists of the main island of Anguilla, approximately 16 miles long by 3 miles (5 km) wide at its widest point, together with a number of much smaller islands and cays with no permanent population. The territory's capital is The Valley. The total land area of the territory is 35 square miles (91 km2), with a population of approximately 15,753 (2021).
Andrea Levy was an English author best known for the novels Small Island (2004) and The Long Song (2010). She was born in London to Jamaican parents, and her work explores topics related to British Jamaicans and how they negotiate racial, cultural and national identities.
Lady Washington is a ship name shared by at least four vessels. The original sailed during the American Revolutionary War and harassed British shipping. Another vessel was used as a merchant trading vessel in the Pacific. A somewhat updated modern replica was created in 1989. The replica has appeared in numerous films and television shows, standing in as other real or fictional ships.
British African-Caribbean people or British Afro-Caribbean people are an ethnic group in the United Kingdom. They are British citizens whose recent ancestors originate from the Caribbean, and further trace much of their ancestry to West and Central Africa or they are nationals of the Caribbean who reside in the UK. There are some self-identified Afro-Caribbean people who are multi-racial. The most common and traditional use of the term African-Caribbean community is in reference to groups of residents continuing aspects of Caribbean culture, customs and traditions in the UK.
HMT Empire Windrush was a passenger motor ship that was launched in Germany in 1930 as the MV Monte Rosa. She was built as an ocean liner for the German shipping company Hamburg Süd. They used the ship to carry German emigrants to South America, and as a cruise ship. During World War II, she was taken over by the German navy and used as a troopship. During the war, she survived two Allied attempts to sink her.
Ivy Ross is an American business executive, designer, and Chief Design Officer for Consumer Devices at Google. She has worked at Google since May 2014; prior to being appointed Chief Design Officer, she led the Google Glass team at Google X.
Veronica Maudlyn Ryan is a Montserrat-born British sculptor. She moved to London with her parents when she was an infant and now lives between New York and Bristol. In December 2022, Ryan won the Turner Prize for her 'really poetic' work.
The African and Caribbean War Memorial in Brixton, London, is the United Kingdom's national memorial to African and Caribbean service personnel who fought in the First and Second World Wars. It originated with a project for a memorial to Caribbean Royal Air Force veterans of World War II who arrived in Britain in 1948 on the MV Empire Windrush; this was an extension of the commemorative plaque and sculpture scheme run by the Nubian Jak Community Trust to highlight the historic contributions of Black and minority ethnic people in Britain. The memorial was originally to have been placed at Tilbury Docks, as part of the commemoration for the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. However, as the project began to evolve into a larger tribute that included both World Wars and commemorated servicemen and women from both Africa and the Caribbean, it was agreed by the memorial recipient – the Port of Tilbury – and the project organisers that a new, more accessible location needed to found. The memorial was ultimately permanently installed and unveiled on 22 June 2017 in Windrush Square, Brixton.
Barbara Walker is a British artist who lives and works in Birmingham. The art historian Eddie Chambers calls her "one of the most talented, productive and committed artists of her generation". She is known for colossal figurative drawings and paintings, often drawn directly onto the walls of the gallery, that frequently explore themes of documentation and recording, and erasure. Walker describes her work as social reflective practice intended to address misunderstandings and stereotypes about the African-Caribbean community in Britain.
Patrick Philip Vernon is a British social commentator and political activist of Jamaican heritage, who works in the voluntary and public sector. He is a former Labour councillor in the London Borough of Hackney. His career has been involved with developing and managing health and social care services, including mental health, public health, regeneration and employment projects. Also a film maker and amateur cultural historian, he runs his own social enterprise promoting the history of diverse communities, as founder of Every Generation and the "100 Great Black Britons" campaign. He is also an expert on African and Caribbean genealogy in the UK. He was appointed a Clore Fellow in 2007, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for "services to the Reduction of Health Inequalities for Ethnic Minorities", and in 2018 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton.
Heidi Safia Mirza is a British academic, who is Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, Professor Emerita in Equalities Studies at the UCL Institute of Education, and visiting professor in Social Policy at the London School of Economics (LSE). She has done pioneering research on race, gender and identity in education, multiculturalism, Islamophobia and gendered violence, and was one of the first black women professors in Britain. Mirza is author and editor of several notable books, including Young, Female and Black (1992), Black British Feminism (1997), Tackling the Roots of Racism: Lessons for Success (2005), Race Gender and Educational Desire: Why Black Women Succeed and Fail (2009), Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times (2012), and Respecting Difference: Race, Faith, and Culture for Teacher Educators (2012).
Guy Arlington Kenneth Hewitt is a Barbadian British Anglican priest, racial justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion advocate, and specialist in social policy and development. He held the ambassadorial appointment of High Commissioner of Barbados in London from 2014 to 2018. He previously worked with the University of the West Indies, Caribbean Policy Development Centre, Commonwealth of Nations, Caribbean Community, and the City and Guilds of London Institute.
Windrush Day is a commemoration in the United Kingdom held on 22 June to honour the contributions of migrants to the post-war economy. Specifically, it celebrates Afro-Caribbeans who began arriving on the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948. Later known as the "Windrush generation", these economic migrants were an important part of the UK's recovery from the privations of World War II. Windrush Day is not a bank holiday but has grown in popularity since a campaign by Patrick Vernon led to its introduction in 2018.
Arthur Torrington CBE is a Guyanese-born community advocate and historian who is Director and co-founder of the London-based Windrush Foundation, a charity that since 1996 has been working to highlight the contributions to the UK of African and Caribbean peoples, "to keep alive the memories of the young men and women who were among the first wave of post-war settlers in Britain", and to promote good community relations. The organization commemorates in its name the Empire Windrush, the ship that on 22 June 1948 docked at Tilbury bringing the first significant group of Caribbean migrants to Britain, including Sam King, who with Torrington established the Windrush Foundation.
Museumand: The National Caribbean Heritage Museum is a group that celebrates the contribution of British African-Caribbean people to life in the United Kingdom. The group is a "museum without walls" based in Nottingham, and who work with communities there and elsewhere, including mounting exhibitions in museums, universities and other places. It was founded in 2015 by Catherine Ross as the SKN cultural museum, and Museumand is a subsidiary of the SKN Heritage Museum Community interest company.
Jacqueline "Jacqui" McKenzie is a British human rights lawyer specialising in migration, asylum and refugee law. Her legal career encompasses practice in the areas of civil liberties, crime and immigration with solicitors Birnberg Peirce and Partners, and since 2010 running her own immigration consultancy, McKenzie Beute and Pope (MBP), having previously spent more than a decade in senior local government roles with responsibility for equalities, community development, communications and urban development. She joined human rights law firm Leigh Day as a partner in 2021. She is the founder of the Organisation of Migration Advice and Research, which works pro bono with refugees and women who have been trafficked to the UK. McKenzie has won recognition for her work seeking justice for victims of the Windrush scandal that initially gained notoriety in 2018. She was named one of the top 10 most influential black Britons in the Powerlist 2022.
Samuel Ross is a British fashion designer, creative director, and artist. He is known for founding the fashion label A-COLD-WALL*, Industrial Design studio SR_A SR_A, and the Black British Artists Grants Programme. Since founding these organisations, Ross has collaborated with companies such as Apple, LVMH, Nike. Ross's output is often characterised as "social architecture for the body", captured through abstraction, brutalism, and deconstruction.
Aleighcia Scott is a Welsh-Jamaican singer-songwriter and radio presenter, currently working with the BBC. She hosts the Thursday evening show on BBC Radio Wales and is recognized for her contributions to the reggae music scene.
Mac Collins is a British artist and designer.
Norma Jacqueline Gregory is a British author, historian, archivist, broadcaster and diverse heritage specialist of Jamaican descent. In 2013, she founded the Nottingham News Centre focused on the preservation of heritage. She is a museum project consultant encouraging increased diversity of representation in British museums and the founder director of the Black Miners Museum.