How Watching a British Documentary Led Me to Discovering My Community’s Racist Past
Palm Coast, Florida, was Designed to Be All-White
Because I have too much time on my hands and too many cable television options, I found myself watching a documentary on Britbox TV: “Africa and Britain: A Forgotten History.” One of the first things I learned was that in the 3rd century AD, there was a village whose inhabitants included several Roman soldiers, including Black ones from Africa, named for the Moors. At one time, about 10% of the inhabitants of this Cumbrian village were Black.
Current Black residents, going back a few generations, mainly came from the Caribbean, though some are of direct African descent. There was no known connection between the current Black inhabitants and those who settled there after leaving the Roman legions. My question, which may be answered in the remaining three episodes, is: What happened to the Black people who were absent for centuries before a relatively recent return?
While I’m curious about British and African history and will continue to watch, I got sidetracked when thinking of American History and areas that have almost no Black people, though they once made up a significant part of the population. The same question could be asked about Native Americans, who were the…
