Race, Rhetoric, Rastafari by Barbara Makeda Blake-Hannah

Barbara Blake was Britain’s first Black TV reporter in 1968. Now a Rastafarian living in Jamaica, she returns to England and looks back on her experience, the racism she encountered and offers options the media should use to create a more tolerant society.

In 1982 Jamaican author and film maker Barbara Blake Hannah visited England, where she had lived from 1964-1972 and in that time become Britain’s first Black TV journalist — appearing each weekday evening on THAMES TV’s “Today Show with Eammon Andrews”, ATV-Birmingham and later working in production with BBC-TV’s “Man Alive” current affairs programme.

Now a Rastafarian, her view of England after her ten years absence is expressed through six interviews with Black and White Britons who give their views on the tragedy of negative race relations in England and the resulting rise in Rastafari views among Black youth.

Filmed in London and Birmingham, the film ‘Race, Rhetoric, Rastafari’ presents a case for racial harmony through understanding that all are Children of One God.

You can contact the film maker directly at www.reggaefilmfestival.com

Written permission obtained for use of all music, interviews, locations in this film. (c) Jamaica Media Productions Ltd./CHANNEL 4 TV-UK.