Nottingham News Centre CIC has received support from the National Heritage Lottery Fund (NLHF) as well as other organisations, partners and individual public donations for a unique project titled Black Miners Museum. The two-year project, based in Nottingham, East Midlands UK, from May 2109- July 2021, will work in collaboration with project partners: Communities Inc. Nottingham the National Coal Mining Museum for England (NCMMfE)Yorkshire, Durham Mining Museum County Durham, Woodhorn Mining Museum Northumberland, Nottingham Industrial Museum among others. Led by volunteers from across the UK and project managed by Norma Gregory (MA,BA,PGCE, PG Cert. https://normagregory.com) and made possible by National Lottery players, the project focuses on collating and sharing the experiences of former coal miners, of African Caribbean heritage, through a variety of media-based and artistic art forms. Ensuring this heritage becomes a permanent aspect of UK industrial heritage is the projects core mission and purpose. Black Miners Museum project aims to formalise and to develop lasting partnerships with existing museums, input and enrich new and existing mining museum collections, provide training for staff and employment for people wanting to get into the heritage sector as well as developing and offering new educational resources through a new Diverse Heritage Management qualification. Over decades, African Caribbean coal miners stood shoulder to shoulder with white British, European and Asian miners, toiling underground to help fuel the UK economy. Their part in Britain’s industrial past has never been told…until now. Many hundreds of black men worked in deep coal mines across the UK with concentrations of black miners, working in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Yorkshire, the North/ North East Bristol, Kent, Durham, South Wales, Irish and Scottish mines for example. Gedling Colliery Nottinghamshire, which was known as ‘The Pit of Nations’ and the 'International Mine' as it was thought that black miners and people from different countries made at least up a quarter of the workforce (between the 1950s-1980s), as symbolised on the Gedling Colliery banner. Due to the resounding success of Nottingham News Centre’s previous heritage projects such as, Miners of African Caribbean Heritage: Narratives from Nottinghamshire and Digging Deep Coal Miners of African Caribbean Heritage National Narratives from across the UK among other educational initiatives and the momentum gained from a renewal in public interest in industrial heritage, this exciting project will expand and increase public awareness, plus led access and new understanding of the contributions made to Britain’s industrial past by diverse communities. TO Be part of this exciting project, simply email [email protected] for more information on how you can take part.
