Viewers who consider "black immigration" into Britain to be modern phenomenon are in for a surprise. One of the brigades of Roman soldiers who guarded an early Roman fort in southern England about 225 A.D. was from Morocco. A group of black families who currently live near the ruins of the fort attended a ceremony in which a plaque was presented to the town's mayor, memorializing its early black inhabitants. Similar plaques were presented by historian David Olusoga (University of Manchester professor) in the various places where there was and continues to be a black presence in Britain. Olusoga explores the removal to London of American slaves who helped the British in the American Revolutionary War. He also visits Sierra Leone where some of those re-located themselves from London's urbanity, and describes how Britain policy changed from viewing slaves as a commodity to viewing slavery as a moral evil, long before America did. Olusoga also reviews how three Botswana chieftains visited Queen Victoria, and put a stop to a trans-African British railroad. In general, this BBC production demonstrates that it is not only possible to be British and black at the same time, but there's long tradition of doing so. It was prepared in response to the modern phenomenon of anti-immigrant sentiment in Britain, which began after the First World War and was encouraged by observing the racial segregation of and by Americans stationed there before and during the Second World War. "Forgotten History" is a powerful excursion into stories of a neglected past.
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