Marika Sherwood (1937–2025)

In the early 1980s there were very few people researching and writing about the histories of African, Caribbean and South Asian people in Britain, and fewer still, if any, who were studying this history at school or university.The historian and campaigner Marika Sherwood, who died in February at the age of eighty-seven, played a significant part in changing this situation, although she would protest that much more still needs to be done.It was while she was teaching in London schools, shocked by the racism her pupils faced, that she first became interested in knowing more about the history relating to the children of Caribbean heritage in her classroom.When she discovered that black children were bullied because it was alleged that their families had not contributed to the Second World War, she decided she must discover more.Later, while working at North London Polytechnic as a student counsellor, and with no academic background or training in history, she was encouraged to begin conducting historical research herself.One of her early books on the subject was Many Struggles: West Indian workers