Records in Focus: Black Power Speaks
Perry Blankson
PhD Researcher
For this edition of Records in Focus, I will be standing in for our usual records specialist, Kevin Searle, to examine another record from The National Archives, the official record keeper of the British government.
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As Kevin has argued in a previous edition of Records in Focus, ‘many of the records held at The National Archives (TNA) relating to the presence of Black and Asian People in Britain are at the archive because of the over-policing and surveillance of these communities.’[1]
This is again the case with these three editions of Black Power Speaks, which were the official publications of the British Black Power organisation known as the Universal Coloured People’s Association (UCPA). The pamphlets were confiscated by the Metropolitan Police after the arrest of leading UCPA member Obi Egbuna alongside his comrades Peter Martin and Gideon Turagalevu Dolo, with all three ‘charged with circulating writings at Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, threatening to kill and maim police officers’ - the pamphlets are contained within the file MEPO 2/11409, with ‘MEPO’ standing for the ‘records of the Metropolitan Police.’[2]
The presence of these documents within the National Archives demonstrates the somewhat paradoxical relationship between the state and Black Power groups, in that through confiscating and attempting to censor Black Power groups, subsequently placing these publications into archives transforms this literature into historical artefacts that future generations are able to access. In other words, without the police confiscating these editions of Black Power Speaks, the likelihood of their preservation across time would decrease.
Particularly interesting about this set of pamphlets is the fact that they comprise the first three issues of the journal, allowing us to examine their development over time. The first issue of Black Power Speaks (May 1968) features a relatively rudimentary drawing of a clenched fist, the trans-atlantic symbol of the Black Power salute. The second edition (June 1968) shows evidence of development, with a sepia-esque tone image on the front cover. The heading at the bottom of the first issue, ‘Voice of the Universal Coloured Peoples’ Association’, is absent, however. The third issue (July 1968) shows evidence of further development and expenditure, featuring a full colour image. The ‘Contents’ section present on the previous two issues has been removed, further illustrating the month-to-month evolution of the pamphlets. Newspapers, pamphlets and leaflets were the lifeblood of Black Power organisations, and ‘much of their activity was based around the publication and dissemination of publications,’ in the words of Hakim Adi [3]. That these artefacts are available to us today make them a vital historical resource, allowing us not only to understand the response of the state to Black Power literature in Britain (confiscation, censorship) but to also allow us to understand what issues Black Power groups rallied around, what activities they participated in and how they organised on the ground.
​Endnotes:
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Kevin Searle, ‘The National Archives: Records in Focus’, History Matters, Vol. 2, No. 1, Autumn 2021
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National Archives: MEPO 2/11409, Benedict Obi EGBUNA, Peter MARTIN and Gideon Turagalevu DOLO: charged with circulating writings at Speakers' Corner, Hyde Park, threatening to kill and maim police officers, involvement of the above-named with 'Black Panther' Party, 1968-69.
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Hakim Adi, Pan Africanism: A History (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), pp. 179-180.
