User:Darrel Blake/sandbox

Darrel Blake (born 16 January 1988) is a social activist, historian, public speaker and youth leader. He is known for his opposition to British colonialism and the notoriety of the British Monarchy. Blake began his studies of African history, at the age of 18, when he met Runoko Rashidi at West Norwood library, during his European tour doing research for of his second book: Black Star: the African Presence in Early Europe. Blake, at the age of 19 developed his public speaking and presentation skills when he joined Pirate Radio station Genesis FM. The radio station was founded by Dennis Rowe aka D Rowe, one of the founders of the south London based Reggae Sound System system, Saxon.

Blake is a first and second generation Black Briton, his grandparents migrated to England, amongst the wave of Caribbean nationals that helped build back Britain after World War II. The experience of the Windrush Empire migrants has influenced his ideology of social science and Critical Race Theory.



Early life and education
Blake is of British African-Caribbean heritage from the islands of Jamaica and Barbados. He was born St. Thomas' Hospital, London, England. Blake was raised Brixton, south London until the age of 6 when he went and lived in Westmoreland Westmoreland, Jamaica. Whilst in Jamaica, he attended Hillsbrook All-Age School in the parish of Hanover

Returning back to England at the age of 7, Blake continued his schooling at Richard Atkins Primary School, then later secondary education at Chestnut Grove Academy (formerly Chestnut Grove School), followed by studying at Richmond upon Thames College.

In 2017, Blake studied Black Studies at Birmingham City University, the first of its kind in Europe, led by Kehinde Andrews.

Debates
In 2018, Blake became Commonwealth debate champion, with momentous wins at University of Cambridge and Birmingham City Council House. These debates lead up to Birmingham hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2022. The focus of the debate was to look at the contributions of Black people from the African diaspora, and the resilience towards discrimination.

Works and contributions
In 2019, Blake wrote and narrated the UK's (first of its kind) nationwide documentary titled: The Doll Test: The Birth of Self Hate. This documentary was a ground breaking research project focusing on racism and racial bias amongst primary school children. This project was influenced by the CLPE (Centre for Literacy in Primary Education) report in 2018, looking at the current state of school books that contain BAME (Black, Asian Minority Ethnic) characters. The report: CLPE's Reflecting Realities - Survey of Ethnic Representation within UK Children’s Literature, launched in 2017, was created to identify and highlight representation within picture books, fiction and non-fiction for ages 3 – 11. Of the 9,115 children’s books published that year, researchers found that only 391 (4%) featured BAME characters. Just 1% had a BAME main character, and a quarter of the books submitted only featured diversity in their background casts. This compares to the 32.1% of schoolchildren of minority ethnic origins in England, identified by the Department for Education for that year.

In May 2020, the Murder of George Floyd brought international unrest that sparked a global conversation around racism and police brutality. The ripple effect in Britain, lead to a national discourse on colonialism and the legacy of the British monarchy. In June 2020, Blake launched a walking tour in London titled City of London: The Slave Trade Money Trail Tour. The tour follows the hidden story of one of Britain’s pioneer's of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the earliest stages of the Triangular Trade and the Britain's invasion of Asia via the East India Company. The core of the tour is centered around the blood money trail of the Lloyds’ family, whose legacy starts at Lloyd's Coffee House on Lombard Street, City of London and, also how they grew rich from the fees and interest they earned from merchants who borrowed money for their long voyages during the slave trade. The tour featured in The Wall Street Journal. This article was addition to international conversation demanding reparations for the transatlantic slave trade. The subheading for the article states "Black Lives Matter campaign triggers new calls for London financial institutions to pay for past ties to slave trade". Blake, is quoted stating "My taxes have gone back to the government to replace the money that was given to the slave masters that owned my family".

In 2020, Blake launched Black Rooted Academy. This is a Saturday school that serves KS1 – KS4 students. The south London Black based initiative’s vision is to create a safe learning space for alternative education and youth leadership wellbeing. Within this education initiative, the aim is to provide national curriculum support, diverse cultural and language teachings, music and media lessons, physical and mental health awareness and Black history from the African diaspora. The end goal is to boost children’s confidence, raise standards and give each child a sense of belonging and identity.

In 2021, Vice News launched their first ever digital interactive experience, The Unfiltered History Tour. From 2016, there had been global talks around Britains legacy of colonialism. This was in highlight of the YouGov poll, that found that 44 per cent of Britons (and 57 per cent of Conservatives) thought their country's ‘history of colonialism’ was something to be proud of, and 43 per cent thought the British Empire was a ‘good thing’. The tour is a secret tour of the British Museum’s stolen artefacts via Augmented Reality. When visitors use their smartphones to scan the museum’s stolen artefacts, the relevant filter is activated via geolocation. They hear native experts narrate the true histories of how they were stolen, as first-ever visual depictions of scenes of crime form a contextual overlay over the artefact in real-time using Augmented Reality. While the British Museum’s narrative portrayed the colonies as helpless in the face of British aggression; AR in smartphones were used to tell history from the perspective of the colonies, as formidable foes who fought to save their cultural treasures. Blake narrated and contributed to the backstory of 2 Taino sculptures, which are wooden artefacts – the ‘Boinayel figures’ and ‘Birdman’. In 2020, The Jamaican government said, "it was moving to retrieve precolonial indigenous sculptures belonging to Jamaica that are being housed at the British Museum". The tour won multiple awards for its innovative educational experience. At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the tour picked up 12 major awards across categories such as Experience and Activition, Radio and Audio, Digital Craft and Social Media; Titanium Lion, 3 Grand Prix, 1 Gold Lion, 4 Silver Lions, and 3 Bronze Lions. The tour has also won the following honours in 2022; Gold Pencil Award - The One Show, Social Education & Discovery Award - Webby Awards, Yellow Pencil Award - D&AD, and Black Elephant Award - Kyoorius Design Awards.

Media
In April 2021, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was on trial for the killing of George Floyd, was found guilty of murder. He was the first white Minnesota police officer to be convicted of murdering a Black person. The conviction sparked conversations globally around whether justice was truly served and the potential impact this would have towards Black people who are "nine times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white people". Blake was interviewed by Voice of America for his opinions on injustices and the impact the conviction has on racial profiling in England. He said, "I feel like true justice will come when black people are not seen as villains from the maternity ward, all the way down to the deathbed. That's when we will get true justice".

In November 2021, Blake was interviewed by GB News to discuss the removal of a controversial statue of the slave merchant Sir Robert Geffrye by an east London museum following a public campaign. In 1657 he became a stockholder with the East India Company. By the 1680s Geffery was also part-owner of a ship, the China Merchant, chartered by the Company and one of the first East Indiamen built to establish trade with China. In 1689 the China Merchant was chartered by the Royal African Company to transport enslaved Africans as well as gold and ivory. The surviving trafficked human lives were sold for £500 on arrival in Barbados. The China Merchant made a further voyage for the Royal African Company in 1692 when 262 men and women were taken from West Africa to Jamaica. The 985 brass rings used to chain them on this voyage were returned to London and properly accounted for, presumably to facilitate their reuse. The monument of Sir Robert Geffrye, who made his wealth from enslaving people from Africa, is above the entrance of The Museum of the Home, but the museum say they would like to move it to a less prominent location.

Awards and nominations
In 2023, Blake was nominated for a Positive Role Model Award at the National Diversity Awards for the third time, following nominations in 2020 and 2021.