Exciting new Black history role for our own Tony T

Sweet Patootee Arts’ co-Artistic Director, Tony T, has started an exciting new Black history role in London’s Tower Hamlets, as ‘Research and Engagement Lead’ for the groundbreaking Communities of Liberation project.

This is role is part-time alongside his work for Sweet Patootee Arts.

“I’m honoured to be the Research and Engagement Lead, Communities of Liberation. Based at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, this role is about uncovering narratives illustrating African presence in the East End of London, and sharing the evidence gathered with the wider public.” Tony T

Communities of Liberation is an historical research and public art project which aims to increase awareness of the long history of the African presence in the borough of Tower Hamlets, by focusing specifically on excavating and sharing stories of individuals who lived there in the 17th and 18th centuries. 

The aim of the project is to identify places, spaces, and networks in which African people lived, worked, or socialised during the period of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Rather than focus on exceptional individuals – e.g., those who published their life stories or were abolition activists – the project will locate names, stories, and experiences of everyday life of working Londoners, and map them to specific locations in present-day Tower Hamlets. We are especially interested in the buildings and spaces – homes, taverns, places of worship – where ‘working class’ African people would gather, meet, and coalesce as a community.