Dominic Hooko
Dominic was born in the year that Ghana gained independence. He is one of eight children who made his own entertainment by recycling everyday objects into toys and he vividly… Read more Dominic Hooko →
Cynthia Bailey
Cynthia was born in Barbados to parents from Dominica. Her mother was from the Carib-Indian tribe and her father was black. She recounts the story of growing up in a… Read more Cynthia Bailey →
Chiedu Oraka
Chiedu Oraka is 28 years old. He was born and raised in North Hull and is of Nigerian descent. He has been a musician for the past six years and… Read more Chiedu Oraka →
Theresa Fyle
Theresa Fyle is of Sierra Leonean and Irish heritage. She speaks about her memories of her father Dennis Fyle, a well known Equality Campaigner in Hull who died three months… Read more Theresa Fyle →
Adrian Njie
Adrian is very well travelled. He was born in Beverley, East Yorkshire to Gambian and Sierra Leonean parents but spent his formative years growing up among different nationalities in Gambia… Read more Adrian Njie →
Dan Syanda
Dan Syanda grew up in Kenya in the 1960s. His aptitude for learning at a school which owned its own plane (!) ignited an existing curiosity about aviation and led… Read more Dan Syanda →
Anne deGroot
Anne’s story begins with her mother coming to Hull from Guyana as a nurse in 1959 and working throughout her career at Hull Royal Infirmary. Anne’s one visit to Guyana… Read more Anne deGroot →
David Gambe
David was born in 1934 in Bulawayo, Rhodesia in one of the first townships built after the British took over the country. He remembers listening to his grandfather bitterly recounting… Read more David Gambe →
David Watson
David Watson was born into a farming family in Jamaica. He came to visit his brother in Croydon and stayed, working initially as a chef before joining the Armed Forces which… Read more David Watson →
Richard Weeks
Richard’s link to an African Heritage is through his Barbadian grandfather, a blacksmith who came to Hull in 1917. He speaks about his father’s remarkable war years and then later… Read more Richard Weeks →
Karen Okra
Karen is of dual heritage being both Jamaican and English but she has struggled to find acceptance with this identity within herself and by other people. She talks about her… Read more Karen Okra →
Asuquo Ema
Zook was born in Beverley and is of dual Nigerian and English heritage from parents who met at Hull University. He went to Nigeria with his parents at the age… Read more Asuquo Ema →
Abraham Adu
Abraham Adu was born in Ghana in 1976. He had had many offers to study for his PhD in 2005 in England but chose Hull because one his lecturers had been… Read more Abraham Adu →
Janet Alder
Janet Alder is one of five children of Nigerian descent who grew up in an Avenues children’s home in Hull. She describes her experiences in her local area throughout the… Read more Janet Alder →
Maurice Labistour
Maurice’s father came to Hull from Mauritius to study which is where the family’s connection with Africa originates. His family have a long history as seafarers. Maurice’s father was on… Read more Maurice Labistour →
Joseph Bvumburai
Joe Bvumburai’s heritage lies in Zimbabwe, but he was born in Zambia when racial segregation was prevalent. At the age of twenty-two he came to Hull to study architecture at the… Read more Joseph Bvumburai →
Ysabelle Wombwell
Ysabelle is of Jamaican, Cuban and Scottish ancestry. She talks about how distant her connection with Jamaica sometimes feels as it is several generations removed and she has not visited… Read more Ysabelle Wombwell →
Mary Cooper
At the age of five years old, Mary was transported alone across the seas from St Lucia to Southampton into the arms of her family who she had been separated… Read more Mary Cooper →
Emmanuel Armah
Emmanuel remembers his early years living within an army barracks in Ghana as his father was in the Army. His driving passion for maths led him to defy his mother… Read more Emmanuel Armah →
Lawrence Sibbanda
Lawrence was born and raised in 1993 in South Africa but is of Zimbabwean descent. He grew up in a very diverse multicultural, multi-faith environment immediately after the apartheid era.… Read more Lawrence Sibbanda →
Liz Cagney
Liz was brought up in Birmingham and is of mixed Barbadian and English heritage. She describes her upbringing as that of contrasts where home had an absence of the Barbadian… Read more Liz Cagney →
Bacary Bax & Live Lans
Bax and Lans are best known in Hull as two members of the band Bud Sugar. The brothers have roots in two African nations: Senegal and Sierra Leone. They both describe… Read more Bacary Bax & Live Lans →
Val Bibby
Val Bibby’s family background is not entirely known to her but she recalls that her great grandfather was from the West Indies and her grandfather was from Sri Lanka. They… Read more Val Bibby →
Kofi Smiles
Kofi Smiles was the BBC Face of Hull for 2017. He was born at Beverley Westwood and is of Ghanaian heritage. He talks about how African stories like ‘Anansi the… Read more Kofi Smiles →
Glynis Neslen
Glynis learned of her British-African heritage at the age of sixteen having been fostered at the age of two in Great Yarmouth. She came to Hull in 1999 via London… Read more Glynis Neslen →
Siddi Majuba
Siddi Maju was born in Sierra Leone in the 1970s. He has visited Hull several times following his first visit in 2006 and has very recently moved to Hull after… Read more Siddi Majuba →
Ebrima Touray
Ebrima Touray was born in the early 1970s in Gambia. He is one of twenty children and as the eldest male, he remains head of his family from a distance.… Read more Ebrima Touray →
Gifty Burrows
Gifty talks about her childhood leaving Ghana as a 7 year old girl with her younger brother without being able to speak English. Her upbringing in Huddersfield and Bury in… Read more Gifty Burrows →
Jason Bowers
Jason’s connection to Jamaica through his grandfather is not immediately apparent to most people who know him but he is proud of his blended heritage that also reflects other European… Read more Jason Bowers →