In historical accounts of Black lives in Britain, less attention has been given to the experiences and perspectives of Black mothers. The collections at Black Cultural Archives offer a view of the times first-generation African and Caribbean mothers lived through, and the social landscape they parented against.
During the 1970s pertinent questions were being raised about gender roles and the role of women in the home and in the family. An increasingly popular view was that there had been a societal failure to deal with mothers’ situations of domestic confinement and servitude, as well as the struggle of bringing up small children in isolation. Women’s socially prescribed responsibility for children and domestic work limited their access to employment and to other opportunities. Migrant mothers were often separated from family networks that may have offered vital support.
For some, the demands of motherhood were variously worsened by the discriminations and inequalities associated with race, class, one-parent family structure and migrant-status. It was in this social context that many mothers rose to articulate the hardships they faced, to organise to improve conditions and to create spaces of support. This exploratory exhibition shines a light on mothers’ struggles and achievements.
[Image: From FOWAAD! no.1, July 1979, DADZIE/1/8/1]
That successive immigration acts placed restrictions on Black people visiting or settling in the UK is increasingly well-known. What is less known is how immigration rules and processes formed barriers to the reunion of mothers and their children. Some emigrating mothers had to leave children behind due to financial constraints, intending to establish themselves first and send for them later. Application for entry for a dependent child was a convoluted process with lengthy wait times; some young people even passed application age limits during the wait. Most applications were refused, and government plans sought to make the process even harder. A 1978 speech at the House of Commons by Norma Steele highlighted this less visible aspect of Black migrant mothers’ lives: “… this meant years of years of separation from the children yet again delayed by all the form filling and investigation carried out the British authorities”, said Steele. “The mothers here have to take on second and third jobs outside of the home in order to send money, clothes and food home for their children and relatives caring for those children, and at the same time save up for the fare to send for them”.
[Image: Welfare benefits - general, Summer 1974 - 21 February 1995, RC/RF/13/07/A]
