Don't know much about history
Martha's Blackness is directly referred to in a couple of stories in S3, the first being The Shakespeare Code (which Jon and I have just rewatched), in which the Doctor takes her to London in 1599. There he has one of his frequent episodes of cluelessness:
Martha: Oh, but hold on. Am I all right? I'm not going to get carted off as a slave, am I?
Doctor: Why would they do that?
Martha: Not exactly White, in case you haven't noticed!
Doctor: I'm not even human. Just walk about like you own the place. Always works for me. [Two Black women appear on the street.] Besides, you'd be surprised. Elizabethan England - not so different from your time.
It was RTD who introduced me to the fact that people of African descent have been around in Europe for centuries - a fact which came as a surprise to many fans, some of whom assumed this was just "politically correct" casting. For example, Rocco in Casanova is based on the Black servant mentioned in Casanova's autobiography1. There are Black courtiers at Versailles in S2's The Girl in the Fireplace, including a friend with whom the young Madame du Pompadour gossips. And in TSC, we see Black faces in the audience at The Globe.
But you probably know all that. The reason I'm actually posting is that Macquarie Uni Library has just got a book called London in the nineteenth century by Jerry White, from which I grabbed a couple of photocopies. The author notes:
"... from the 1850s on a small black and Asian middle class had been embedding itself in London society. In the law, where the first 'Mahomedan' was admitted as an attorney in 1858; in medicine and academic life; in business and among students training for the Indian civil service - exams were held in London and not in India. A handful entered politics, like Dadabhai Naoroji, elected Liberal MP for Finsbury in 1892. More were called by religion. There were Indian Christian missionaries working near the Victoria Docks at the end of the century, for instance."
He goes on to describe Celestine Edwards and the Pan-African Conference of 1900. "It was in London in the 1890s that black and Asian intellectuals, with invaluable contributions from African-Americans, began to articulate an anti-imperalist ideology that would help change for ever world politics in the centuries to come."
I know woefully little about history, so I find all this fascinating. It paints a very different picture to the typical image of the past, in which Black people are suddenly invented in America in the 1700s. :-)
1. Bellino (played by Nina Sosanya, also seen in S2's Fear Her), has been pointed out as an example of a number of Black female characters in RTD's writing suffering from unrequited love for a White man, another being Donna from Queer As Folk. Also, Shaun Parkes played both Rocco in Casanova and Zachary Cross Flane in S2's The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. And was in Human Traffic with John Simm. Just thought you'd like to know.
Martha: Oh, but hold on. Am I all right? I'm not going to get carted off as a slave, am I?
Doctor: Why would they do that?
Martha: Not exactly White, in case you haven't noticed!
Doctor: I'm not even human. Just walk about like you own the place. Always works for me. [Two Black women appear on the street.] Besides, you'd be surprised. Elizabethan England - not so different from your time.
It was RTD who introduced me to the fact that people of African descent have been around in Europe for centuries - a fact which came as a surprise to many fans, some of whom assumed this was just "politically correct" casting. For example, Rocco in Casanova is based on the Black servant mentioned in Casanova's autobiography1. There are Black courtiers at Versailles in S2's The Girl in the Fireplace, including a friend with whom the young Madame du Pompadour gossips. And in TSC, we see Black faces in the audience at The Globe.
But you probably know all that. The reason I'm actually posting is that Macquarie Uni Library has just got a book called London in the nineteenth century by Jerry White, from which I grabbed a couple of photocopies. The author notes:
"... from the 1850s on a small black and Asian middle class had been embedding itself in London society. In the law, where the first 'Mahomedan' was admitted as an attorney in 1858; in medicine and academic life; in business and among students training for the Indian civil service - exams were held in London and not in India. A handful entered politics, like Dadabhai Naoroji, elected Liberal MP for Finsbury in 1892. More were called by religion. There were Indian Christian missionaries working near the Victoria Docks at the end of the century, for instance."
He goes on to describe Celestine Edwards and the Pan-African Conference of 1900. "It was in London in the 1890s that black and Asian intellectuals, with invaluable contributions from African-Americans, began to articulate an anti-imperalist ideology that would help change for ever world politics in the centuries to come."
I know woefully little about history, so I find all this fascinating. It paints a very different picture to the typical image of the past, in which Black people are suddenly invented in America in the 1700s. :-)
1. Bellino (played by Nina Sosanya, also seen in S2's Fear Her), has been pointed out as an example of a number of Black female characters in RTD's writing suffering from unrequited love for a White man, another being Donna from Queer As Folk. Also, Shaun Parkes played both Rocco in Casanova and Zachary Cross Flane in S2's The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. And was in Human Traffic with John Simm. Just thought you'd like to know.