Marika Sherwood

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Marika Sherwood
Born1937 (age 86–87)
Budapest, Hungary
Occupation(s)Historian, researcher, educator and author
Known forCo-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.

Contents

Biography

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]

Selected publications

Books

Articles

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.

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References

  1. ↑ "Black and Asian Britain" - Seminar Series at ICwS, 2012–2013, Institute of Commonwealth Studies.
  2. ↑ Sherwood, Marika (September 1998). "Billy Strachan (1921–1998)". Black and Asian Studies Association Newsletter (22): 31–32.
  3. ↑ Shapiro, Stephen (1 June 2008). "Review: After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807". origins.osu.edu. Ohio State University. Retrieved 29 August 2018.
  4. ↑ Gayle, Damien (29 September 2017). "UK university censors title of Holocaust survivor's speech criticising Israel". The Guardian . Retrieved 29 August 2018.
  5. ↑ Baynes, Chris (29 September 2017). "Manchester University censors title of Jewish Holocaust survivor's speech criticising Israel". independent.co.uk. Retrieved 29 August 2018.
  6. ↑ "Search results - Contributor: Marika Sherwood". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
  7. ↑ "Historian's tale of an African's journey to Kent", Faversham Times, 22 June 2012.
  8. ↑ Erica Taylor, "Little Known Black History Fact: Albert Makaula", BlackAmericaweb.com, 5 June 2012.
  9. ↑ David Killingray (2011), "Origins of Pan-Africanism. Henry Sylvester Williams, Africa, and the African Diaspora", The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 39:2, 348–351.
  10. ↑ Whittall, Daniel (2011), "The imperial African - Review of Origins of Pan-Africanism: Henry Sylvester Williams, Africa, and the African Diaspora, by Marika Sherwood (Routledge, ISBN   978-0-415-87959-0, 354 pp." The Caribbean Review of Books).
  11. ↑ Sherwood, Marika, After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807, I. B. Tauris Publishers,
  12. ↑ Martin, Guy. 2005. "Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787 (review)". African Studies Review. 48 (1): 214–217.
  13. ↑ Heywood, Linda. 2005. "BOOK REVIEWS - Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 38 (1): 117.
  14. ↑ Vinson, R. T. 2005. "Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787, by H. Adi and M. Sherwood : book review". Unisa Latin American Report. 21 (2): 113–115.
  15. ↑ Killingray, David. 2004. "Pan-African History: Political figures from Africa and the diaspora since 1787, edited by Hakim Adi and Marika Sherwood. London: Routledge, 2003. 203 pp. ISBN   0-415-17353-1 (paperback)". African Affairs. 103 (412): 496–497.
  16. ↑ Bourne, Jenny (2001), Claudia Jones: a life in exile (Review), Race and Class, v.42, no.3, 2001 January–March, p. 105 (ISSN: 0306-3968)
  17. ↑ Ceesay, Hassoum (9 November 2007). "Book review | Kwame Nkrumah: The years abroad, Marika Sherwood, Freedom Publications, 2005". The Daily Observer'. The Gambia.
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