Sarah Parker Remond (1826-1894) was an African American activist who became well known on her international abolitionist tours for her fiery speeches.
In 1853 she took successful legal action against a local theatre campaigning for desegregation long before the US Civil War or the Civil Rights movement. In 1858 she undertook the challenging journey, as a single black woman, to the United Kingdom and gave numerous anti -racist lectures to packed houses across England, Scotland and Ireland.
She studied at what is now University College London and Royal Holloway University. She lived around the corner from where Mary Seacole, a contemporary, wrote her first book. Sarah was also involved in British women’s campaign to vote.
Sarah Parker Remond later moved to Florence, Italy, where she became a doctor at one of Europe’s most prestigious medical schools and qualified as an obstetrician.
Her language skills enabled her to join elite groups in Florence and Rome, where she hosted fellow abolitionist Frederick Douglass and lived next to the famed black female sculptor Edmonia Lewis. She also befriended the famous Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini.
Sarah Parker Remond’s popularity, philanthropy, prominence and professional achievements are little known today. This lecture by Professor Sirpa Salenius author of ‘An Abolitionist Abroad, Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe’ will lay out the context and extent of her success. Plus Q&A
This is an online event via Zoom at 6.30pm UK/GMT time. The link will be sent 30 minutes before the start please check your JUNK MAIL . Look out for our new book Black History Walks in London Volume 1 from Jacaranda Books
Other coming events from Black History Walks www.blackhistorywalks.co.uk
- Black History River Cruise
- Anti Racism as Politics with Professor Paul Gilroy
- Fibroids and reproductive health: new research from the Caribbean
- Jim Kelly, Kung Fu and Black British Civil Rights
- 1968 Race Relations Act and the legacy of Black Lawyers
- Prince the Black History Breakdown
- Is Britain responsible for America’s Race Relations ?
- Coded Bias: Racism disguised in computer programming
- The Gentrification of Peckham and Black Urban removal worldwide
- The British Black Panther Movement
- Caribbean health and the sinister secrets of sugar
- Books, violence and resistance (lecture series 1-4)
About the Speaker:
Professor Sirpa Salenius lectures at the School of Humanities, Foreign Languages and Translation Studies at the University of Eastern Finland. Her interests in English language and culture centre on American literature and culture as well as transatlantic studies. Her research focuses on issues related to race, gender, and sexuality, from the nineteenth century to the present . She has lived and worked in France, Japan, Italy, the USA and Finland. She is the author of ‘An Abolitionist Abroad, Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe’.
About the Sarah Parker Remond Centre at U.C.L
The University College London Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation explores the impact of racism – scientific, metaphysical and cultural. Part of the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, they work closely with many partners on-site to provide a focal point for scholarship, teaching and public engagement activities that are addressed to various problems of racial inequality and hierarchy.