The Promise
Britain fought WWII with the support of millions of people from Africa, the Caribbean and India, but the voices of Black women are seldom heard.
During the war, these contributions were demanded and celebrated, but easily forgotten with a return to racial colonial hierarchies.
Drawing on the lived and imagined experience of Black women and girls, directly involved or influenced by the war as subjects of the British and French colonies, explore the live theatrical performance about how such hidden histories influence our current social realities.
It explores themes of selection and rejection, belonging, displacement and racism as ‘identity theft’. In so doing, it will seek to reveal the subtle and overt impacts of the shifts in narrative from ‘us’ to ‘them’ and ask, where do we go from here?
Credits
Academic Lead
- Sarah Frank, Lecturer in the History of the Francophone World at the University of Sheffield
Creative Partner
- Susan Downer, Freelance Journalist, Fiction Writer and Workshop Facilitator