Tennyson Makiwane comes to London - but how? Reading Race, Collecting Cultures - The Roving Reader Files

The Roving Reader Files category of blog posts is produced by Alison Newby (under the pseudonym The Roving Reader) in collaboration with Hannah Niblett (Collections Access Officer, Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre). The former provides the text and the latter normally provides the images. The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre is an open access University of Manchester facility, and The Roving Reader Files are designed as public engagement materials. The intention is to introduce research skills and terminology to the general user/reader in an entertaining yet informative manner by revealing hidden stories, making unusual connections and sharing insights into using the Centre's collection for research. The blog post "Tennyson Makiwane comes to London - but how?" is part of a series exploring the links between items held by other institutions/collections and the race relations theme/holdings of the Centre. This post attempts to capture the excitement of discovering tantalising new evidence of how one of the most significant participants in the early UK anti-apartheid movement came to Britain. When researched and put into historical context with the help of eye-witness Manu Herbstein, certain correspondence buried in the uncatalogued British Asian and Overseas Socialist Fellowship (BAOF) collection (held by the Labour History Archive at the People's History Museum (PHM) in Manchester) revealed the informal networks in London whereby funds were obtained enabling Tennyson Makiwane to travel to the city from Cairo in 1959. Helped in this by his sister Daisy, anti-apartheid activist Canon John Collins, and the Secretary of the BAOF, Makiwane as a black South African came to play a key part in orchestrating the Boycott Movement which led to a nationwide month-long boycott of South African goods in the UK in March 1960. The follow-up post "Meeting Daisy Makiwane..." looks into what can be learnt about the activities of Tennyson's sister Daisy, who to all intents and purposes has disappeared from history. Further blog posts in this series are: "Massacre of the Missionaries" ; "The Devil Man Springs to Life" ; "Day in, Day out: Reminiscence work in Monsall"