In 17 76, france decided that they needed to contain the de fle of black bodies arriving in europe. So what happened is, francette at the police de noir police denoir is the place for black people. And ultimately it was about sending them when they could, sending them to the caribbean. For these people, some of them were free men and women, so they were allowed to stay, but they had to register. It's creating a category of humans that is there to reassure the population. I wantd to show that in europe, this is a long tradition of policing black bodies. He didn't start even during the civil riot; he started four
The history of Africans in Europe may seem recent – a result of migration in the 20th and 21st centuries – but in her new book, African Europeans, historian Olivette Otele tells a very different story – a story of African presence in Europe that stretches back centuries.
Otele writes of African Europeans through the lives of individuals both ordinary and extraordinary. She has uncovered a forgotten past, one that features the Libya-born Roman Emperor Septimius Severus, a Medici duke believed to have been born to a free African woman and enslaved Africans living in Europe during the Renaissance. By exploring a history that has long been overlooked, she sheds light on questions very much alive today: What can movements like Black Lives Matter learn from the long history of Black activism in the UK and Europe? Why are Black Britons such as the Windrush generation often treated as if they aren’t full British citizens? And how can remembering the silenced narratives of our past help us understand the present and lead to a better future?
On November 23 2020, Otele will came to Intelligence Squared to reveal this untold story of European and African history. She was in conversation with author and BBC Radio 4 presenter Kavita Puri.
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