The Colour of Love

ocals during 1940’s – 1970’s. Many of us meeting for the first time because of a desire to weave our narrative into Nottinghamshire’s emerging modern tapestry of Black History. This project celebrates the strength and resilience of these couples ,and above all the love they shared which blazed a trail for the future. The Colour of Love aims to empower the local community and descendants of these pioneers to learn more about this previously unexplored history, and to create an invaluable archive for future generations. By recording & documenting the hidden and untold until now stories of these couples we are leaving a legacy for future generations of theirs and Nottinghamshire’s diverse history. When we started this journey of discovery one of the first things that we uncovered and that surprised us is that Nottingham has ‘a higher-than-average mixed-race community than the country as a whole, with 6% of people being ethnically mixed, with 4% mixed white and black Caribbean.’ Subsequently making it more important to start to uncover and document these hidden stories, leading to further research about Nott’s industries and the availability of work; which we believe explains the reasons why the city that we grew up in attracted so many of the Windrush generation. There are many documented stories of the Windrush generation that educate us of them being invited here to help rebuild the Country after the war and those who came soon after that do not reflect the mixed-race relationship story, we are bridging that gap through sharing our research in community settings and to wider communities through our website. Our research and documentation has been possible through the support of volunteers from the community, local businesses, community and voluntary organisations and statutory providers and feedback from our events, activities, and funding 2017 -2020 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund has enabled us to carry out this important work. We hope that like us; through our work you will see the love that has triumphed at a time when such relationships were viewed with open prejudice and racism at worst and muted tolerance at best. Take a look at this article written by Clare Bale for Leftlion really captures the essence of who we are…
https://www.leftlion.co.uk/read/2021/february/colour-of-love-project-nottingham/