Poetic Temple x The Archives

Poetic Temple is back at The Africa Centre, exploring the themes of the Africa Centre’s current exhibition as a creative impetus. We are delighted to be a part of the Africa Centre’s 60+ years story, adding to a rich legacy by providing regular Spoken Word nights every 3rd Wednesday of the Month. 

2024 to 2025 was outstanding! We committed to raising £6000 for the Africa Centres campaign through our ticket sales and merchandise. We are yet to hit our target and determined that 2026 will be the year that we succeed. 

To mark their 60th anniversary (2024), The Africa Centre has a landmark exhibition celebrating six decades of African presence, creativity and cultural influence in Britain.

Curated by Leon Robinson (Positive Steps Associates), the exhibition draws on Before The Africa Centre, tracing the deep and often overlooked history of Africans in Britain, The Africa Centre Through the Decades, a chronological exploration of the Centre’s impact across arts, culture, education, and community life. The Next Chapter, featuring the premiere of a new short documentary by award-winning filmmaker Curtis Essel, reflecting on the Centre’s future in a new era of African creativity.

From April 15th, we will invite you to our Poetic Temple curated evenings of Open Mic, Featured Poets and Musicians, Live art and more. Culminating in a live Auction of the exciting Artworks produced by Stella B since 2024 in August, where we will have a live Art Auction alongside Special 

Put the dates in your diary!

April 15th- Sons of Africa

May 20th- The Lyrical Pugilists

June 18th- Windrush

July 22nd- Re-Membering

August 21st- The Auction

Earlybird Tickets Available NOW!!!

ALL SALES GIVE %20 TOWARDS THE FUNDRAISER 

POETRY. OPEN MIC. MUSIC. ARCHIVES. LIVE ART

The Sons of Africa were among the earliest organised Black political activists in Britain—free African men in late-1700s London who refused to remain silent while their people were trafficked and brutalised in the transatlantic slave trade. Writing letters, publishing statements, and directly petitioning Parliament, they asserted the humanity and rights of African people at a time when the empire treated them as property. Their activism helped shape the moral pressure that fueled Britain’s growing abolition movement.

Two of the most celebrated voices among them were Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano.

Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved African who purchased his freedom, became one of the most powerful witnesses against slavery in the Atlantic world. His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, electrified Britain. 

The book detailed the horror of the Middle Passage and the cruelty of plantation slavery, while also affirming African dignity, intelligence, and culture. It went through multiple editions and became one of the most influential abolitionist texts of the 18th century, helping mobilise public support against the slave trade.

Ottobah Cugoano, born in present-day Ghana and enslaved as a child, emerged as one of the most radical Black intellectual voices of the period. In Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery, he delivered a fierce moral and philosophical attack on slavery. Unlike many white reformers of his time who argued for gradual change, Cugoano demanded immediate abolition and insisted that enslaved Africans had the natural right to resist their bondage.

From a Pan-African perspective, the Sons of Africa were more than a footnote in British history; they were the early architects of Black political resistance in the diaspora. Long before the 20th-century Pan-African congresses, these African men in London were already speaking with one voice for the freedom, dignity, and global solidarity of African people. Their writings, organising, and courage laid an intellectual and moral foundation that later generations from anti-colonial movements to modern Pan-Africanism would proudly build upon. ✊🏿🌍