Remembering Marika Sherwood at C.L.R. James Library in Dalston
Odai Quaye
Author and Advocate
The fact that this event was being held at the C.L.R. James Library in Dalston was not lost on all those who attended, Marika only knew James within his last years but regarded him as an elder who had much knowledge to pass on, the same way younger historians and students regarded her.
Hakim Adi, longtime collaborator of Marika, hosted the evening. He relayed some of his memories of Marika’s kindness, and how the two came to know each other through a similar interest in bringing to light the history of African and Caribbean people in Britain. Adi’s testimony was an important reminder that Marika was indeed a pioneering researcher, with an unmatched thoroughness: “every archive I’d been to, she had already been”, this brought out lots of laughter from the audience. There was much to be said about Marika, and much to be said from Marika herself, by way of clips from an extended interview conducted by Young Historians Project back in December 2023, one of the last interviews she did.
Her granddaughter Kim was the first of the speakers for the evening, who was accurate in saying that she lived a rich life and also lived with her memories of escaping Hungary during the Second World War, which informed much of her work and drive.
The evening was one of warmth, laughter, and joyous recollections. It was a get together of friends and associates who hadn’t seen each other in years, those who knew Marika through her work or saw her as a mentor and sharp editor. With asides about paragraphs being covered in red, pages being torn out of drafts for magazines and sentences being checked with the utmost scrutiny so that the information inside didn’t come off as jargony and overly academic. In the last speech of the evening, A.S. Francis mentioned a particularly harrowing story about sending Marika a draft of the History Matters Journal through the post, and receiving the same copy back with red lines across the entire draft.
But all these different accounts contributed to the larger picture of who Marika was. An incredibly enthusiastic account of the “Best African history conference ever” was told with much enthusiasm by Historian Lucy Mackeith, with a particular focus on “what she did, how she did it and the consequences of what she did” and emphasis on the fact that she pretty much arranged the whole thing by herself. With emphasis on local histories, people from as far as Tyneside and Wellingborough were encouraged to share and highlight their own findings, spurring each other to uncover more.
Listening to many of the stories from the speakers only further emphasised the apathy and disregard that many of Britian’s historical institutions had for Marika and her contemporaries. A particular moment that stood out was when Lucy Mackeith brought up how in looking for records in her county of Devon, for her research into the connections between Devon and the transatlantic slave trade, upon visiting the archive office for records on the activities of the Swete family in Antigua, the archivist brought out a folder simply titled “Curiosities”.
Martin Spafford gave a particularly sobering speech, recalling how in response to the BNP’s attempts to manipulate the then upcoming D-day celebrations in 1993, Martin, Marika and others hosted an event celebrating the soldiers of the Caribbean and South Asia who fought during the war. where at the Imperial War Museum he met two historians one being Donald Hinds, the other in his words was a “warm engaging , insistent woman” he also mentioned the by chance connection in that he was reading Natasha Brown’s 2021 novel Assembly “best case those children grow up, assimilate, get jobs and pour money into a government that forever tells them they are not British, this is not home”.
Marika’s work in Ghana as relayed by the Institute of African Studies highlighted her work on Kwame Nkrumah and overall contributions to the history of Pan-African struggle. Her contribution to the Nkrumah centenary in 2010 were highlighted as well as the fact that her name was known in places as far as Russia. This served as a reflection on just how deep of an impact she made on this world.
Before the event was over the audience was made aware that as a gift they would be able to obtain free copies of Marika’s last published book, An African Family in Kent, a short work but it probably best encapsulated what Marika did well in a succinct form: highlighting the lives of African people within Britain that had yet to be told, reaffirming the existence and lives of people within Britian and shattering preconceived beliefs and myths.
It’s difficult to pinpoint a particular moment that was my highlight for the entire evening but what I appreciated the most about the event, was how much it captured the difficult work and at times outright rejection that historians like Marika had to deal with.
While there was grief in the air, the overall spirit of the evening was one of celebration and recognition of an impassioned, unselfish woman whose work and dedication to the reaffirmation and recognition of the lives of African people in Britian and internationally, will serve as a bountiful resource for historians to come.