100 Great Black Britons

100 Great Black Britons is a poll that was first undertaken in 2003 to vote for and celebrate the greatest Black Britons of all time. It was created in a campaign initiated by

In 2002, the BBC launched a campaign and television series called 100 Greatest Britons, with the definition of a great Briton as "anyone who was born in the British Isles, or who has lived in the British Isles, and has played a significant part in the life of the British Isles".^[4] The series was the idea of Jane Root, then Controller of BBC Two, and in the final results of the BBC poll, Winston Churchill was voted "the greatest Briton ever".^[5] At the time, the poll was criticised for lacking in diversity, as out of 100 nominees only 13 were women while none were Black (of African descent).^[1][4]

In response to the absence of any Black people in the "100 Greatest Britons poll",

Paul Phoenix, of Black Parents in Education, criticised the poll for being inspired by the 100 Greatest Britons poll and copying the idea.[8] Phoenix said, "Why do we always have to keep reacting to what other people do? We should celebrate our heroes every single day the year and not wait until Black History Month to bring these issues to public attention".^[8] Sam Walker, of the Black Cultural Archives, responded in support of the 100 Great Black Britons poll, stating that "it doesn't matter whether the poll is a copycat idea; so is Black History Month, which came from America in the late 1980s and has served us well to date".^[8]

The inclusion of Queen

2003 poll results

Top 10

Rank	Name	image	Notability
1	Mary Seacole (1805–1881)		Mary Jane Seacole (née Grant; 23 November 1805 – 14 May 1881) was a British-Jamaican businesswoman and nurse who set up the "British Hotel" behind the lines during the Crimean War. Coming from a tradition of Jamaican and West African "doctresses", Seacole used herbal remedies to nurse soldiers back to health. She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1871. Her autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (1857), is one of the earliest autobiographies of a mixed-race woman.
2 =	Bishop Wilfred Wood (born 1936)		Wilfred Denniston Wood KA (born 15 June 1936) was a Knight of St Andrew, the highest class within the Order of Barbados , "for his contribution to race relations in the United Kingdom and general contribution to the welfare of Barbadians living there".
2 =	Dr Oliver Lyseight (1919–2006)		Dr Oliver Lyseight (11 December 1919 – 28 February 2006), Windrush generation", the first Caribbeans to emigrate in significant numbers to postwar Britain, notably in 1948 on the HMT Empire Windrush.[17]
3	Mary Prince (1788–1833)		Mary Prince (c. 1 October 1788 – after 1833) was a British abolitionist and autobiographer, born in Bermuda to an enslaved family of African descent. Subsequent to her escape, when she was living in London, England, she wrote her slave narrative The History of Mary Prince (1831), which was the first account of the life of a black woman to be published in the United Kingdom. This first-hand description of the brutalities of enslavement, released at a time when slavery was still legal in Bermuda and British Caribbean colonies, had a galvanising effect on the anti-slavery movement. It was reprinted twice in its first year. Prince had her account transcribed while living and working in England at the home of Thomas Pringle, a founder of the Anti-Slavery Society. She had gone from Antigua to London with her master and his family in 1828.
4	Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797)		Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 – 31 March 1797), known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa (/ˈvæsə/), was a writer and abolitionist from, according to his memoir, the Eboe region of the Kingdom of Benin (today southern Nigeria). Enslaved as a child, he was taken to the Caribbean and sold as a slave to a Royal Navy officer. He was sold twice more but purchased his freedom in 1766. As a Africans living in Britain, and he was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s. He published his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), which depicted the horrors of slavery. It went through nine editions in his lifetime and helped gain passage of the British Slave Trade Act 1807, which abolished the slave trade. Equiano married an English woman named Susannah Cullen in 1792 and they had two daughters. He died in 1797 in Westminster . Since the late 20th century, when his autobiography was published in a new edition, Equiano has been increasingly studied by a range of scholars, including from his homeland.
5	Philippa of Hainault (1310/15 – 1369)		Philippa of Hainault ( King Edward III. Edward promised in 1326 to marry her within the following two years. She was married to Edward, first by proxy, when Edward dispatched the Bishop of Coventry "to marry her in his name" in Valenciennes, the second city of the County of Hainaut, in October 1327. The marriage was celebrated formally in York Minster on 24 January 1328, some months after Edward's accession to the throne of England. In August 1328, he also fixed his wife's dower . Philippa acted as Edward, the Black Prince, who became a renowned military leader. Philippa died at the age of 56 from an illness closely related to edema. The Queen's College, Oxford , was founded in her honour. Philippa's inclusion on the Black Britons list proved controversial, as historians dispute that she was "black" in any modern sense: see Criticism section above.
6	Courtney Pine (born 1964)		Courtney Pine, CBE (born 18 March 1964 in London) is a British jazz musician, who was the principal founder in the 1980s of the black British band the Jazz Warriors. Although known primarily for his saxophone playing, Pine is a multi-instrumentalist, also playing the flute, clarinet, bass clarinet and keyboards. On his 2011 album, Europa, he plays almost exclusively bass clarinet. Pine's parents were Jamaican immigrants, his father a carpenter and his mother a housing manager. As a child, Pine wanted to be an astronaut. Born in London, he went to Kingsbury High School, where he studied classical clarinet, teaching himself the saxophone from the age of 14. He began his music career playing reggae, touring in 1981 with Clint Eastwood & General Saint .
7 =	Sir Bill Morris (born 1938)		William Manuel Morris, Baron Morris of Handsworth, DL (born 19 October 1938), generally known as Bill Morris, is a former British trade union leader. He was General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union from 1992 to 2003, and the first black leader of a major British trade union. Morris sits in the House of Lords, taking the Labour Party whip.
7 =	Sir Trevor McDonald (born 1939)	British newsreader and journalist	Sir Trevor McDonald, OBE (born George McDonald; 16 August 1939) is a Trinidadian-British newsreader and journalist, best known for his career as a television news presenter with ITN . Trevor McDonald was born in Indian descent. McDonald was knighted in 1999 for his services to journalism.
8	Shirley Bassey (born 1937)		Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey, DBE (/ˈbæsi/; born 8 January 1937) is a Welsh singer whose career began in the mid-1950s, and is well known both for her powerful voice and for recording the theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979). In January 1959, Bassey became the first Welsh person to gain a No. 1 single. In 2000, Bassey was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to the performing arts. In 1977, she received the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist in the previous 25 years. Bassey is considered one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the second half of the 20th century.
9	Bernie Grant (1944–2000)		Bernard Alexander Montgomery Grant (17 February 1944 – 8 April 2000), known as Bernie Grant, was a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Tottenham from 1987 to his death in 2000. Grant was born in British South Asian MP Keith Vaz . In September 2007, in Tottenham, London, Haringey Council opened the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in his name.
10	Professor Stuart Hall (1932–2014)		Stuart McPhail Hall Birmingham School of Cultural Studies . In the 1950s, Hall was a founder of the influential Birmingham University in 1964. Hall took over from Hoggart as acting director of the Centre in 1968, became its director in 1972, and remained there until 1979. While at the centre, Hall is credited with playing a role in expanding the scope of cultural studies to deal with race and gender, and with helping to incorporate new ideas derived from the work of French theorists such as Michel Foucault . Hall left the centre in 1979 to become a professor of sociology at the professor emeritus. British newspaper The Observer called him "one of the country's leading cultural theorists". Hall was also involved in the Black Arts Movement. Film directors such as John Akomfrah and Isaac Julien also see him as one of their heroes. Hall was married to Catherine Hall, a feminist professor of modern British history at University College London , with whom he had two children.

2003 poll – full list

2019–2020 relaunch

In 2019, the decision was taken to relaunch and update the 100 Great Black Britons poll 16 years after the first poll.^[10] This was made in reaction to the lack of awareness in the general of public to Black British culture, establishment in Britain and Black Britons in general, in addition to both the "Windrush scandal" and the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.^[22] The campaign and poll was re-launched by Vernon and Dr Angeline Osborne, an independent researcher and heritage consultant, in the wake of the Windrush scandal, the Brexit referendum, the rise of right-wing populism and the continuing economic issues faced by black communities across the UK.^[11] Repeating the poll was believed to be of great importance as academics and independent scholars have discovered new Black British historical figures and new role models have emerged since the first poll in 2003.^[22] The poll and campaign was re-launched to celebrate and tackle the invisibility of Black people's achievements and contributions in the UK.^[23] The public was invited to vote for the most-admired Black Briton in several categories, and from the thousands of nominations received in 2019 a shortlist was selected.^[24][25]

As part of the 100 Great Black Britons campaign, children and young people have been encouraged to explore Black British history and celebrate the continued legacy and achievements of Black people in Britain.^[23] The competition is sponsored by the National Education Union (NEU) and Kevin Courtney, the NEU's joint general secretary has said: "The NEU supports this competition to celebrate what we have always known: that Britain's history is irrefutably rooted in black and global history".^[23] Schools have also been encouraged to engage with the competition, with suggestions that young people could dress up as their favourite Black Briton, create a project or write an essay to honour the legacy and heritage of Black Britons and to celebrate Black British history.^[26] Arike Oke, managing director of Black Cultural Archives, has said: "The resources on the 100 Great Black Britons site can be used by families, parents, guardians and carers to help children understand themselves and their wider history".^[23]

The results of the updated poll were revealed in a new book published on 24 September 2020.^[11][27] The 2020 list was compiled by a panel after the public was invited to submit nominations and, according to Vernon, "could easily have been called 1,000 Great Black Britons", based on the volume of nominations, which have been listed in the book, alongside biographies of the top 100.^[28] The selection was made from among people who have made major contributions to arts, science, business, philanthropy and other areas in the UK and who had used their positions to advance the Black community.^[29] Described by the Hackney Citizen as "inspiring and highly educational", the book was ranked at the top of the Amazon book charts two weeks before it was published.^[29][30] With the book's publication, a campaign was launched to pay for a copy to be sent to every secondary school, against the background of calls for Black and other minorities' history to be added to the National Curriculum being rejected by the government.^{[28][31][32][33]}

2020 list

Unlike the earlier list, the 2020 list is not ranked:

Book

• ISBN 1472144309.^[30]