Every Black History Month, two realities exist at once: the celebrations and sombre reflections upon our past, simultaneously, we acknowledge these legacies through the persistent barriers and miraculous breakthroughs in our present moment.  In England, October is an annual opportunity for us to hold space for the juxtapositions of the past and the present, successes and challenges.  However, for many of us, these are tensions and triumphs that exist on a daily basis.

Shakespeare was also acutely aware of these juxtapositions in his own time.  Often drawing upon legacies and stories from his own past to bring to the theatre audience in his present moment, Shakespeare’s work embodies the tensions and triumphs experienced by the black community.  Exploiting the characters, plot, and framework of Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio’s 1565 play Gli Hecatommithi, Shakespeare created Othello.  A play in which the audience is forced to witness the impact of hostility and racist slurs upon the eponymous African character.  Watching The Tempest, the audience reflects on the silence of Sycorax and the enslavement of Caliban, two further characters of African origin who are negatively portrayed by the European Duke of Milan, Prospero.  In Titus Andronicus the Nurse demonstrates hostility and disgust towards the morality and appearance of blackness when she declares: ‘a devil…joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue…as loathsome as a toad’ as she enters ‘with a blackamoor child’ (4.2.52).

In stark contrast, Aaron offers a triumphant breakthrough on the early modern stage in his defence of blackness when he challenges perceptions in Titus Andronicus.  ‘[I]s black so base a hue?’ (4.2.71) he asks rhetorically, urging the Nurse and the audience to interrogate their own prejudices.  He goes on to assert that the child ‘shall not die’ (4.2.80), further still, Aaron takes pride in the strength of blackness proclaiming that ‘coal-black is better than another hue/In that it scorns to bear another hue/For all the water in the ocean/Can never turn the swan’s legs to white’ (4.2.98-102).  Here, Aaron is asserting the power of blackness which is too powerful to be hidden by another colour or washed away by the entire ocean.  The complexity of Aaron’s character also offers an insight into the two realities of pride in and prejudice towards his own blackness.

Re-presentations of these characters in our modern-day theatres, urges audiences to have empathy for Shakespearean characters and gives us an opportunity to consider their real-world counterparts.  Encouraging empathy in our learning and teaching environments is a vital strategy to build bridges from then to now, providing a route through Shakespeare’s plays across the 400-year chasm to our present moment.

As a Shakespearean scholar, my own doctoral research From Shakespeare to the Windrush and education initiative Shakespeare, Race & Pedagogy, explores the interconnectedness of the real and theatrical worlds, then and now.  The interrelationship between the theatrical and real-world stories forms a significant part of my daily Black History reflections and celebrations.  The hostility faced by Othello reverberates across the centuries to the hostile environment experienced by the Windrush generation.  Whilst Aaron’s defence of blackness echoes movements such as Black Lives Matter which stands up for and defends our humanity.  Othello and Desdemona were denied the opportunity to bring their mixed-race child to fruition on the early modern stage, however, Aaron’s child reflects my ‘skin in the game’[1].

[1] Ambereen Dadabhoy, ‘Skin in the Game’, 2020

It is interesting to note that Aaron and the Nurse do not distinguish the specificities of the child’s shade of skin.  Although he is mixed-race, all characters racially categorise him as black.  A distinct difference from the interim crafting of the gradients of blackness which has taken hold to cause divisions and ambiguity amongst the black community.  My research interests of migration and the cross-cultural encounters that resulted in mixed-race children, acknowledges, and includes the vast scope of the community to broaden the legacy of Black History.

The 2023 Black History Month theme is ‘Saluting Our Sisters’.  Although many black women spring to mind, such as the actresses of colour Joyce Green MacDonald writes of, however, here, I would like to hold space for the black women who, like Sycorax, have been silenced.  The women who wanted to perform or study Shakespearean characters but were turned down or turned away.  The women who, like Sycorax, were forced to flee their countries.  The black and mixed-race women who were only labelled as ‘Elizabeth, a negro child, born white’[1] or ‘the mother a negro’[2] in the English archives.  Imtiaz Habib did much work to recover such women from historical records.  Habib’s research has given us the opportunity to salute these sisters and form connections with the black women who have been erased or silenced.  The legacy and audacity of our sisters who migrated to England and created lives for themselves, fills me with courage to continue to break barriers in the urgency of our present moment.

[1] Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives 1500 – 1677, p. 313

[2] Imtiaz Habib, Black Lives in the English Archives 1500 – 1677, p. 313