Black Voices

Through the lips of black British Christians, we hear the stories and experiences first hand. Hostility, prejudice and cruelty were not uncommon, but there are also many glimpses of warmth and oneness, welcome and acceptance, as they arrived in a foreign land.
Black people of African origin and descent have lived in Britain for many centuries. By the late 18th Century an increasing number were active Christians. Long before Empire Windrush arrived in Tilbury in mid-1948, black Britons worked as missionaries, evangelists, doctors, ministers and political activists, as well as in non-professional roles.

Many black Britons are little known and largely forgotten. Here they touchingly describe their lives, faith, work, families, their hopes and ambitions, all part of a rich and fascinating seam of British history that has been generally ignored.

This intimate portrait will inform black Christians today of their heritage, while helping white Christians to understand more about the diversity of Britain’s cultural background.