Barbara Blake Hannah | |
|---|---|
| Born | 5 June 1941 |
| Nationality | Jamaican |
| Other names | Barbara Makeda Blake-Hannah Barbara Blake |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, author, film maker, politician |
| Known for | One of the first black on-camera reporters on British TV |
Barbara Makeda Blake-Hannah (born 5 June 1941) is a Jamaican author and journalist known for her promotion of Rastafari culture and history. She is also a politician, filmmaker, festival organiser and cultural consultant. She was one of the first black people to be an on-camera reporter and interviewer on British television[a] when, in 1968, she was employed by Thames Television's evening news programme Today.[1][2] Hannah was sacked because viewers complained about having a black woman on screen.[3][4] She later returned to Jamaica and was an independent senator in the Parliament of Jamaica from 1984 to 1987.[1]
In Jamaica, Blake-Hannah had read television news bulletins and had written for a monthly news magazine managed by her father, Evon Blake,[5] who founded the Press Association of Jamaica.[3]
She arrived in Britain in 1964 to work as an extra on the film A High Wind in Jamaica (1965).[5] In the next few years she wrote for The Caribbean Times, West Indian World, The Sunday Times, Queen and Cosmopolitan.[5][3] Blake-Hannah was appointed in 1968 as a reporter on Thames Television's Today, at the time presented by Eamonn Andrews, in which role she interviewed prime minister Harold Wilson and actor Michael Caine.[1]
After nine months, she was dismissed without formal explanation, although her producer said the company was under pressure from a negative response from viewers for them having a black woman on television,[5] and said that the station had had calls from viewers, telling them to "get the Nigger off the screen".[3] Blake-Hannah then worked for the local news programme broadcast by ATV in Birmingham.[3] She was unable to find a hotel that would allow her to stay, and had to commute from London each day until she found a room at the YWCA.[3] She was deliberately kept away from the studio on a day when Enoch Powell was being interviewed.[3] Following this, she worked as a researcher on the BBC's documentary series Man Alive.[1]
Chris Blackwell and Perry Henzell offered her a job in 1972 as public relations officer for The Harder They Come, the first Jamaican feature film. She returned home permanently to Jamaica.[1] Here Blake-Hannah had a successful career as a film-maker and has also been an independent senator in the Parliament of Jamaica from 1984 to 1987.[3] Thus, Blake-Hannah also became the first Rastafarian representative in the parliament.[4][6][7]
She has written several books, including a 1982 account of the Rastafarian religion, and produced several more films, including a documentary for Britain's Channel 4, Race, Rhetoric, Rastafari (1982).[4] Blake-Hannah's 1982 memoir Growing Out: Black Hair and Black Pride in the Swinging Sixties charts her life and career in Britain.[3]
Her son, Makonnen David Blake Hannah, was appointed in 1998 aged 13, as a youth technology consultant by Phillip Paulwell, then Minister of Commerce and Technology, and was the youngest consultant ever appointed by the Jamaican government.[8]
Known for her promotion of Rastafari culture and history, she currently serves as executive director of the Jamaica Film Academy, which organises the Reggae Film Festival.[9][10]
In April 2020, Blake-Hannah gave an interview to Bryan Knight's Tell A Friend podcast, where she candidly spoke about her experience working in Britain. She spoke of the racism prevalent at the time and her journey to black consciousness.[11]
The British media periodical Press Gazette launched the "Barbara Blake-Hannah prize" in 2020 to recognise emerging talented journalists from minority backgrounds.[12]
She has been active in the call for reparations for slavery.[13][14][15] In 2001, she established the Jamaica Reparations Movement after returning from the UN-backed World Conference Against Racism where the issue of reparations had been debated.[16] However, in 2022, she said: "After seven years of trying to drum up support for the J.A.R.M. [Jamaican Reparations Movement], ...I handed the work over to the government. Twenty years later, hardly one of the UN’s 19 Forms of Reparations have been implemented by any country, least of all Britain."[16]