More information and tickets https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/east-croydon-black-history-walk-tickets-1272958476069?aff=ebemoffollowpublishemail&ref=eemail&utm_campaign=following_published_event&utm_content=follow_notification&utm_medium=email&utm_source=eventbrite

Proceeds from ticket sales go to support Croydon Supplementary Education Project. They need to raise funds to renew the lease for their base in Sydenham Road.

The image above comes from the Image from the Autograph ABP website. Thomas Johnson (on the right) with his wife (seated) had both been enslaved.  They came to London from America in 1876 as beneficiaries of the Manchester YMCA and the Baptist Missionary Society of London.  The other couple are C.H. Ricardson and his wife who arrived a year later to accompany the Johnson’s on their mission.  The photograph was taken in 1878, shortly before they left for West Africa.  Johnson taught and preached in the village of Bakundu in Cameroon.  However, after his wife died, his own ill health forced him to return to England in 1880.  Thomas published his autobiography in 1882, entitled “Twenty-Eight Years a Slave, or the Story of My Life in Three Continents”, which involved missionary work both in Britain and Africa. He continued to preach and give lectures on Africa in Ireland and America, as well as England and became a British subject in 1900. He ran children’s services at the Croydon Skating Rink, on Cherry Orchard Road, in the early 20^th century.  It was on the site of the current Knolly’s House Mosaic East office block.

More information https://eastcroydon.org.uk/the-history-of-east-croydon/east-croydons-connection-to-the-trans-atlantic-trade-in-enslaved-people/