Windrush Strikes Back: Decolonising Global Warwickshire (WSB) Windrush Strikes Back: Decolonising Global Warwickshire (WSB) is a community-engaged history project facilitated by the Global Warwickshire Collective (GWC). The project was focused on uncovering the hidden histories written by British African Caribbean peoples in historic Warwickshire, including Coventry, Birmingham and the surrounding areas. The GWC mentors offered training to descendants of the Windrush generations, known as ‘Decolonial Detectives.’ Through training and engagement, the intention of this project was to inspire community members to take more active ownership of and involvement in the production of black history, and to challenge the exclusivity of historical scholarship in Britain. Together the group worked towards decolonising the entangled “glocal” histories of Shakespeare’s county, Warwickshire. The project entailed a sustainable legacy, such as the results of training and engaging community members in academic scholarship and research skills. The output from this project is being a reference point for similar projects who wish to unearth Black history in historic Warwickshire and to add the work to archives so there is legacy to the work for the generation to come. WSB has also served as a model for how academics can work with community members in the research and co-production of history. This could develop into schools and other forms of education. The Kingsway Project has held numerous events and curated multiple museum exhibitions over the years. Annette Robinson Annette Robinson Annette Robinson is a community development manager. She works with Kingsway Project, a small voluntary organisation and with the NHS. She has gained a MBA in Building Capacity. Annette has many contacts and has enhanced her business relationships by working for both the public and private sector for over 20 years, which has enabled her to work at ease between the sectors and within many areas of the community. She was one of the decolonial detectives for the Windrush Strikes Back Project 2019-20. She is still committed to researching and communicating Black Activism past and present in Birmingham. She has recently completed work for the Windrush Strikes Back Project on the black female missionary, Rose Grenfell. See our Nineteenth-Century Activists page for Annette’s presentation about Grenfell and other Black missionaries in Birmingham, England.
