About

Bernie Grant was born on 17th February 1944 in Georgetown, Guyana into a family of teachers. His father, Eric, was a headmaster and, later, principal of a Teachers’ Training College. His mother, Lily, was a highly respected teacher, both in Guyana and in Haringey, North London and several of his close relatives also chose education as their profession, including his uncle, Basil Blair, who was a President of the Guyana Trades Union Congress.

Bernie was the second child and second son of five children and spent three years at his father’s primary school in Ituni, one of the bauxite-mining districts of Guyana. He returned to Georgetown at the age of nine to attend Sacred Heart Roman Catholic School, from where he won a scholarship to St Stanislaus College, a Jesuit boys’ secondary school.

The area in which he grew up in Georgetown, Charlestown, was very diverse with rich and poor families of different races and Bernie was very popular, since he was sociable and good at sports, especially cricket and basketball.

Although he passed his O Levels with flying colours, Bernie left school a year later because he wasn’t allowed to study his preferred subjects. He then worked for two years as a laboratory analyst before he left for England to join his family.

On arriving in England Bernie attended Tottenham Technical College before going on to study engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Scotland. He left University in 1969 in protest against discrimination against black students. For the next 9 years, he became an International Telephonist, quickly becoming involved in the Union of Post Office Workers, fighting for the rights of fellow workers. In 1978 he became a full time Area Officer for NUPE, responsible for its local authority and health workers. Bernie founded the Black Trades Unionists Solidarity Movement, and worked for it full time between 1981 and 1984.

ABOUT

Through this site you can learn not only his story, but also that of the generation of black and global majority citizens who arrived in Britain in the post war period, and those who, alongside Grant, were involved in promoting positive change in society in the late 20th century. This is an organic project, and we consider it to be a work in progress, and continually expanding resource.

The Bernie Grant Archive, which is held at the Bishopsgate Institute, has recently undergone a process of digitisation, to ensure the accessibility and preservation of key items within the archive collection. The Digitisation Project represents an exciting new chapter for community archives in the UK, and presents the first such archive collection of its kind in the UK.

The Bernie Grant Trust first began this project in 2024, in the hope that through this digital collection, many people will discover or re-discover the legacy of the late Bernie Grant MP, those who worked alongside him in British politics in the late 20th century into the new millennium, and the major projects and issues that they took up. This digital collection also prompts visitors to consider how Bernie Grant’s life’s work can be used to question what the role of a political representative is (whether local, national and international), and perhaps what it should be.

This process of digitising a major collection included highlighting key themes within the collection, and categorising the archived material within these themes to present the major campaigns and sites of struggle by Bernie Grant, and a generation of activists, public figures and community members during the late 20th century.

The late Bernie Grant MP led a remarkable life. Over 35 years, he was at the forefront of a furious dialogue about race in British society as a trades unionist and civil rights activist, as the first ever Black Leader of a local authority in Europe in Haringey, North London, as an outspoken Black Member of Parliament, and as an international campaigner.

A record of these crucial years is contained within Bernie’s papers, in books and magazines, memorabilia, correspondence, audio and video material and hundreds of photographs of meetings and demonstrations. Together they tell not only his story, but of the struggles of an entire generation of black and minority ethnic citizens who arrived in Britain in the post war period.

In partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund and Middlesex University the Bernie Grant Trust appointed a professional archivist to preserve, catalogue and make accessible, a permanent collection to be held at Middlesex University and on the web.

In addition to this a Guide to the Collection is available for schools and the community at large. Future plans include seeking further funding for outreach work, establishing a mobile exhibition to travel to schools and community centres throughout the country. We want to work in partnership with other archives and museums to develop joint exhibitions, both permanent and temporary. We wish to create not just a static physical archive, but a live, interactive experience that can and will be enjoyed by a wide range of people.

Bernie had a strong sense of his heritage, and strived in his lifetime to ensure that minority ethnic communities were in touch with their history. He was adamant that the present could not be understood without honesty about the past. He was especially aware that the achievements and experiences of Black communities had too often been “written out” of history. It is fitting therefore that his own life and times are properly recorded, and the collection provides a rich and unique resource for future generations who seek to understand a key period in the making of the multi-racial Britain.

In 2003, in partnership with the Heritage Lottery Fund and Middlesex University the Bernie Grant Trust appointed a professional archivist to preserve, catalogue and make accessible, a permanent collection to be held at Middlesex University and on the web. In 2010, with Middlesex University changing shape, the collection has found a new home at the prestigious Bishopsgate Institute in heart of the City of London, along with the archives of other labour movements and free thinkers of their day.

The Bernie Grant Trust is a charity, and relies on donations to maintain and preserve its unique archive, and to run social and educational projects using the collection. Please help us by giving today! Click on the button below to make an online donation.