Statement of Intent
I didn't want to do this.
I know I need to. I know it's necessary. The reality is: community isn't convenient.
Since I started, we've been pruning our roots, developing a team with more capacity, and developing governance. In the next few months, we'll be sharing our levels of engagement: organisational partner, ally, funding partner, to name a few and the principles we expect to be upheld when someone takes on one of these titles.
The work of the Storyhouse, the memorial, Our Common Ground, the UNESCO dialogues, it's been happening. It's challenging, necessary work. The fight isn't always public, we’re actively working on calling you in more. Today is the start of that.
We've been reflecting on how, to deepen the impact of projects. For example with memorialisation, how do we change how Afrikan Heritage artists are supported, how do we integrate Afrikan Heritage Community rituals and customs into the process and on a city level. How do we educate on our history, the present harm, and the need for change.
As we do this, we ask, how does BLF build an organisation without perpetuating the same harm?
Just a few weeks ago, I received these words from Emmanuel Williams
“Congratulations on your appointment….You and I already have an obvious connection.., Len Garrison was a very good friend and colleague… it is clear that your background and ethos will enhance the work of BLF”
It was then, I realised my path, my journey, which at the time so often felt hard, was quietly preparing me. The idea Queen Mother Moore and Len Garrison held true, creating a global network where wherever we are, we see ourselves. This is similar to what I am being called to do.
I read recently
Everybody has a set of choices, and we can try to just move the way that we want to see the world go.”
My current world? I have a community. A village I can lean on, lean into, and give back to. Together we can build a better world.
So when people ask me why BLF, why Bristol, why now? My answer is: you don't get to choose when you are called. You only get to choose how you show up.
Zita Holbourne's globe, part of The World Reimagined's Still We Strive, reminds us that no one is free unless all of us are free. I remember, when I first entered this sector, someone told me: this is a relay race. If you're handed the baton, you run your best race and go as far as you can with it. Then, before you give out, you hand it to the next person, so the race keeps going.
That analogy has stayed with me a constant reminder that I am only a part of this, and that what we work towards; we, I, may never live to see the benefit- it shouldn’t stop me trying.
As I work to learn the history, and unlearn the hardwiring of growing up inside colonial systems, this sector of art and heritage, or if we go by the government's grouping, "Culture, Media and Sport" has taken me in.
When I speak of culture, it is not surface level. It's the framework we exist in. It shapes how we see the world, what we consider right and legitimate, our notions of belonging, our desires. When we focus on deliverables only, we lose the understanding of structural power.
There's a question I see in various discourse: does culture create community, or does community shape the culture?
Both. But what it isn't, is inherited automatically by birth. It's constructed, collectively. Which means we get to determine how we show up. We get to choose how Bristol sees its own shared understanding of systems, of practices, of how identities are sustained across generations.
Why do I focus on art and culture in reparations, specifically Afrikan reparations? Because culture and power are inextricably linked: who is visible, whose knowledge is respected. It's why we talk so much about positive media representation. But we've also seen: more doesn't mean a change in culture. We saw more Black faces on TV after 2020. The culture of the sector didn't change. The gatekeepers didn't give up power, they simply chose who could, and could not, be seen.
Britain is often called passively racist, as if that makes it acceptable. The microaggressions, the flags erected, are not neutral. They are a direct showcasing of the culture we exist in. A byproduct of the trafficking of our ancestors, the dehumanisation, the dilution and erasure of our culture.
I've never liked the notion that we must be one thing. But I've adopted the idea of being a cultural strategist because culture shapes economies, politics, humanity. For me, to be Afrikan-centred is to be culturally aware and systems-driven.
We are seen to exist in a "cultural sector," but not as part of the "creative industry." The former has propped up my resilience; the latter, growth. The former is extractive; the latter, generative. This sector, like people, is more nuanced than that. We don't sit, or operate, in silos. As the use of Afrikan Heritage Communities as commodities continues, today, I ask: how do we honour those who came before, while building for those still to come?
It's this that governs my leadership.
It's less about what I do, and more about the process of doing it: am I challenging the systems, the structures, that continue to erase Afrikan Heritage communities' culture? I use that term broadly - I take a Pan-Afrikan stance.
A rejection of patriarchy and capitalism. Now, I don't promote matriarchy in the way it was taught to me. I mean matriarchy in its ancestral form. I'm no academic, but there's a quote I carry with me, from Lovette Jallow:
"True matriarchy doesn't put women in men's seats. It dismantles the seats entirely."
We need our guardians of culture back, the aunties and uncles, the spiritual leaders. I speak often about a move from STEM to STEAM, so that art and humanity are given the same weight as science and technology. In the age of AI and rapid tech advancement, we need memory holders and educators not in the traditional academic sense, but as guardians.
Many of us were taught Maslow's hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, self-actualisation. Why must it be a hierarchy? "What a man can be, he must be", that quote forms the basis of the perceived need for self-actualisation, and I urge us to begin there, and build outward to protect it.
I choose this leadership because I believe we should lead from care and interdependence. I am here in service to you. My seat as CEO is to steward this organisation, to offer reciprocity, and to engage in shared responsibility, to do better within the frameworks we exist in, and to dismantle them for a new beginning.
Before chattel enslavement, before empire, before colonialism- the world was a combination of communities. Many of the struggles we see today, loneliness, the unfair distribution of labour, classism, violence, attainment gaps are the result of states and hierarchical structures enforced upon us.
I need to remind you: nothing here is inherent. Not the systems, not the institutions, not even money. If it was made before, we can make it again. Better. With humanity at the centre.
If we start with Afrikan reparatory justice, everyone in the community, better yet, humanity, wins- a nod to the refreshed CARICOM manifesto.
I’m not saying anything new. I have not one original thought. The teachings exist, the blueprints are just fragmented. I am but one person on this journey. But in the position I'm in, I call you in. The ask I have for you is this: do you dare to work towards a world we can currently only imagine?
At every stage, we unlearn, and we build better systems. What does restitution actually look like? This is not a rejection of modernity. We know Western success was built on our ancestors' backs. The question is: where would we be, as a people, if we had not been trafficked and enslaved? How do we exist both here, and in our homelands? For me, this is what it means to think glocal.
As a first-generation Brit, I cannot ignore the effects of growing up here. The initiation into BLF has, honestly, been excruciating. But we all have a choice on this journey, and I am choosing to lead publicly, vulnerably, and collectively.
It would be easier to leave this sector, get a better-paying job, and live comfortably- that was once the dream. But then I, too, would have been complicit. I would have ignored my own self-actualisation. We are all on this journey and we all have a part to play.
This is where our ten-year mandate with Bristol City Council carries real weight, it isn't a project with an end date, it's infrastructure. The Harbourside Memorial, the work moving toward 2033, Our Common Ground, these are not deliverables to tick off. They are the beginning of institutional memory for this city, built by us, for the generations after us.
At BLF, we use the terms framework builders and community repair. This isn't jargon, it's our way of being. We know we are currently operating inside colonial cultural infrastructure. The spaces I get to move in give us access to knowledge, hopefully funding, and relationships. But in doing this, we must never lose sight of why: to honour those who came before, while building for those still to come.
This journey isn't about me. I know people buy into people, so I need to earn your trust. I also need you to know: the responsibility is on all of us. I've taken up the responsibility of leading BLF. I will challenge, I will learn, I will work so that the narrative of our ancestors is not forgotten, is not repeated, and so we elevate collectively.
Redress. Repair. Remember.
I cannot do it alone.
I call on you all to join the movement.
The reality is the world doesn't work for anyone right now. It definitely doesn't and has never worked for Afrikan Heritage Communities. The system was built on destruction and profit over humanity. If we want a future, we have to change it.
So my leadership comes back to a set of principles. And before we do anything, I ask:
Does it educate us?
Move us?
Systemically change things? Even by one degree.
If not, why are we doing it?
I'm aware of my privilege, and my responsibility. The stakes are high. I have a duty to you, my community. Community repair is the only acceptable outcome of this work and that means all of us using our skills, giving credit where it's due, and being audacious. There is enough to go round. We are not crabs in a barrel. I do not need to pit BLF against another organisation. We simply need to work toward a consensus to repair.
To quote a dear Brother:
“No one speaks about the environment in which the crabs are placed. No one speaks about the hell inflicted on those crabs. So when we talk about "crabs in a barrel" and we use that phrase to deprecate each other, and ourselves, in the same breath —maybe we should ask a different question. Is it the crabs that are wrong, for trying to crawl out of an artificial environment they never chose?
Or are the crabs wrong for being placed in a situation they had no say in?
Or should we be looking at the hand that crafted the environment?”
What if, instead, we decided to be our own architects here, in Bristol?
What could that look like?
If we can agree that the current conditions do not advance us, the Afrikan Heritage Communities, then we can agree we need change, built and led by us. We cannot wait for those who built the current systems to suddenly change their minds. The system does exactly what it was created to do. This is why I focus on people, people make up institutions. I understand that while we work to create the alternative, we must also work with those inside the system, pushing for better policy and reform but better yet change minds. Let's be clear: working towards Afrikan reparations and liberation is not without structure, process, and conflict even when it's led by us, and centred on humanity.
BLF exists to help bring that framework building- to call out harmful structures, and to support community welfare systems. Welfare, by definition, is the state of doing well, especially in relation to happiness, well-being, or success or aid, in the form of money or necessities, for people in need. We should work to both.
To help with community repair for Afrikan Heritage Communities, at BLF we understand the ecosystem:
Consultation is a start.
But consultation without education is futile.
First, we must educate on the present harm to Afrikan Heritage Communities.
Only then can we mobilise to create alternatives, to pool resources, to build sustainably.
The movements before us had membership, governance, ways of dealing with conflict and disagreement and money. Capital isn't everything, but it certainly moves things forward. BLF seeks to build frameworks with those who do the work, to ensure resources move, assets build, and knowledge is accessed.
There are many willing to work towards a consensus, and I want to take the time to thank:
The BSWN team · Ujima Radio · the team at Malcolm X · MET · GAPP · The Council Culture Team · Bolanle · Morayo · Oshii · the artists shortlisted and yet to be announced · the Society of Merchant Venturers · the Nisbet Fund- the Trustees- all those who were part of the former legacy, partner and stakeholder groups.
This is not exhaustive. It is a reflection of what this takes, risk, consistency, a willingness to be inconvenienced, a collective effort
To conclude. As BLF works to educate, advocate, build, change and ensure that memory in stone, and in speech promotes respect for Afrikan Heritage Communities, I call on you to join us- I call us together. Through individual giving. As funders. Through partnerships, promotion, volunteering, engaging.. Start where you are - start now.
At BLF, we're starting with:
Open dialogue with you all.
Sharing resources, updates, reports, insights from meetings, data: to help you stay up to date and develop your own conscientisation.
Creating global connections, to ensure we do Afrikan community repair both here, and with those abroad.
Continuing to work towards memorialisation, but through Afrikan Heritage art and culture.
Divesting assets and finances to support those with impact but less access and or capacity.
Join us. Not just BLF, all of us, in the global movement for Afrikan reparations.
We start here. In Bristol.
This is my statement of intent.
Hannah John
Your CEO