Annual Windrush Day Lecture: Why Women’s Stories Matter.
In 2020, Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage established the Annual Windrush Day Lecture to address the ongoing need for deep reflection and contextualisation against the backdrop of significant […]
Black News 
In 2020, Serendipity Institute for Black Arts and Heritage established the Annual Windrush Day Lecture to address the ongoing need for deep reflection and contextualisation against the backdrop of significant contemporary issues. The lecture creates a platform for esteemed thinkers, writers and educators to amplify the narrative of Black presence, persistence and resistance in the UK while unpacking the complex realities of British-Caribbean connections.
For 2026 we are honoured to present Dr Christienna D Fryar, a writer and an independent historian of Britain and the Caribbean. After 12 years working in universities in North Carolina, Western New York, Liverpool and London, she left academia in April 2023. Her last academic position was at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she was the founding convenor of the MA Black British History, the first taught masters’ programme of its kind in the United Kingdom. Most recently, Fryer became the CEO of Mary Seacole, Liverpool’s leading mental health charity for multicultural communities.
At the heart of Fryar’s work is the conviction that Britain and its history cannot be understood in isolation from the Caribbean and her keynote for this Annual Windrush Day Lecture will focus on the stories of Caribbean women. This theme is particularly fitting for this year as it coincides with Making the Invisible Visible: Black Women 365 Days of the Year. It is essential to recontextualise the mainstream theories of migration, particularly when looking at Caribbean migration in the era of Windrush and the experiences of women.
The arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948 has cemented a vision that of the 492 Caribbean passengers on board, only men were shown disembarking from the ship. The reality is that of a total 1,057 passengers, 257 were women and of these 188 travelled alone. Yet there is a dominant focus on the experiences of male economic migrants (Ryan and Webster, 2008). For many of the women aboard the Windrush, and those who travelled to the UK before and after, their stories are limited to just their official entries on passenger lists and government records.
But the stories we do have paint a picture that is rich, complex and human. For example, Mona Baptiste, from Trinidad, who despite listing her occupation as a clerk was an established blues singer and featured on the BBC variety programme Band Parade. Or Lucilda Harris, from Jamaica, who was travelling to be reunited with her husband who had migrated the year before (the day after their wedding day), and who went on to be one of the founders of the Windrush Foundation. Also aboard were several nurses, including Ena Clare Sullivan, who had been actively recruited by the British government to help build the newly formed NHS (Berry-Waite, 2023).
Dr Christienna D Fryar’s lecture will be an opportunity to expand on these stories, lives built through tribulation, tenacity and resilience. It is essential to remember that there is no single story, but in telling this story it is essential to centre the voices of women.
Making the Invisible Visible: Black Women 365 Days of the Year
References
Berry-Waite, L., (2023) Women on board the Empire Windrush. The National Archives. Available at: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20250613151221/https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/women-on-board-the-empire-windrush/ (Accessed: 21 May 2026).
Mapping Caribbean Migration. (2023) Empire Windrush Passenger List Overview. Available at: https://mapping-caribbean-migration-nationalarchives.hub.arcgis.com/pages/windrush#Women (Accessed: 21 May 2026).
National Museums Liverpool. (n.d.). Daughters of the Windrush. Available at: https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/daughters-of-windrush. (Accessed: 21 May 2026).
The National Archives. (N.D.) Ormonde, Alamanzora and Windrush. The National Archives. Available at: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/ormonde-almanzora-windrush/ (Accessed: 21 May 2026).
