Patrick Vernon

Patrick Vernon was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire (now in the West Midlands), England, to Norris and Avis Vernon,[15][16] who had migrated to the UK from Jamaica in the 1950s.[17] Growing up in the All Saints and Penn Fields areas,[15] Vernon attended Grove Junior School, Colton Hills, and Wulfrun College in Wolverhampton,[18] before going on to study law at Manchester Metropolitan University, followed by postgraduate studies at Warwick University.[19] He moved to London in 1989.[20]

In a career focusing on health and social care, his work has included employment as manager for Citizens Advice Bureau; senior civil servant at the Department of Health and Local Government Association; Director of the Brent Health Action Zone (Brent Primary Care Trust), and Regional Director for charity MIND. He was the former Chief executive of the Afiya Trust, one of the leading race equality health charities in the UK.[17] He was a committee member for Healthwatch England, and a trustee for Social Action for Health. He is also a trustee for the North London Muslim Housing Association and the patron of The Santé Project, a Camden charity that a charity that aims to improve refugees' rights and health access, particularly mental health.[21][22]

He is an associate member for the Department of History of Medicine at Warwick University,[23] an advisory board member for the mental health campaign Time To Change, and a former ministerial adviser for mental health.[21] He was a member of the independent Metropolitan Police inquiry on Mental Health and Policing.[24][25]

Vernon is the Director of Black Thrive, a programme for tackling mental health inequalities and improving the wellbeing of the African and Caribbean community in the London Borough of Lambeth.[26][27]

In 2002 Vernon founded Every Generation Media[28] to develop education programmes, publications and films on cultural heritage and family history,[6] with the Every Generation website becoming one of the main sites on family history for African and Caribbean communities in Britain.[16] In 2003 he launched the successful "100 Great Black Britons" campaign, in response to a television series broadcast by the BBC called 100 Greatest Britons (a list topped by Winston Churchill through public nomination), in order "to raise the profile of the Black contribution to Britain and to challenge the notion of Britishness."[29] The campaign received wide coverage in the national print and television media, with Mary Seacole eventually announced as having been voted the greatest Black Briton.[30] In 2019, the decision was taken to relaunch and update the poll,[31] and the results of the updated poll were revealed in a new book entitled 100 Great Black Britons, written by Vernon with Angelina Osborne, that was published on 24 September 2020.[32][33]

In 2006 Every Generation published When We Ruled, a history of African civilisations by Robin Walker.[4][34] In 2013 in partnership with Ian Randle Publishers Vernon published Caribbean in Sepia: A History in Photographs 1840–1900, written by Michael Ayer. In addition, Vernon has published a book about the history of pirate radio stations (Master of The Airwaves written by Dave VJ and Lindsay Wesker).[35]

Vernon has a collection of 5,000 historic postcards that he uses in workshops he runs on family history and genealogy.[22] He is the author of a guide to using the National Archives photographic images as a resource for family history, as part of the "Caribbean Through the Lens" project.[36][37] He is related to singer Jimmy Cliff and has traced his lineage as far back as the 1800s,[22] to a village in Senegal called Kédougou.[2][38]

Vernon was the first to call for the national celebration of "Windrush Day" on 22 June, to recognise the migrant contribution to UK society, marking the day in 1948 when the Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, bringing the first big group of post-war migrants from the West Indies to Britain.[10][39][40] On being made an OBE in 2012, in recognition of his work to promote health equality for Black and minority ethnic communities, Vernon said: "I am dedicating this honour to my parents who were part of the Windrush Generation; they made a lot of personal sacrifices in coming to Britain and raising my four sisters and me. It is also great to receive this award which also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Independence of Jamaica."[15]

In 2015 Vernon was caught up in controversy around his concerns that the design of the flag of the Black Country was offensive and insensitive.[41][42] This led to him being "dragged into an online hate campaign after saying that the flag's chain motif represents an image of an industry which profited from the transatlantic slave trade."[43]

In May 2018, following his earlier campaign for Windrush Day and his 2013 petition to the British government, Vernon relaunched a petition asking the Prime Minister to recognise June 22 as a national day to commemorate and celebrate migration and migrant communities in Britain.[44][45][46] At the height of the Windrush scandal, with revelations about the wrongful detention and deportation of members of the Windrush generation and their children, and following Vernon's campaigning for justice for those affected, including an amnesty on deportations,[47][48][49][50] it was announced by the government that an annual Windrush Day would be celebrated, supported by a grant of up to £500,000, to recognise and honour the contribution of the Windrush Generation and their descendants and to "keep their legacy alive for future generations, ensuring that we all celebrate the diversity of Britain’s history."[12][51]

Vernon's work to create more awareness around the Windrush story includes developing a board game and having directed the documentary film A Charmed Life about Eddie Martin Noble, who came to Britain from Jamaica and was one of 10,000 Caribbean people who served in World War II.[52]

Vernon has also mounted a campaign for Mary Seacole to be featured on the Bank of England's new £50 note, which would make her the first black Briton to be honoured by appearing on a banknote.[53]

In April 2020 after his sister's partner died from the COVID-19 virus, Vernon set up a fundraising initiative called "The Majonzi Fund" which will provide families from Black & Minority ethnicities with access to small financial grants that can be used to access bereavement counselling and organise memorial events and tributes after the social lockdown has been lifted.[54]

Vernon featured on the August 2020 cover of British Vogue as one of 20 activists "ready to change the world".[55]

Vernon served for eight years as a Labour councillor for the Queensbridge ward in the London Borough of Hackney, stepping down in May 2014, when the ward was abolished.[22][56] He was appointed as chair of the Labour Party's Race Equality Advisory Group in December 2015.[57]

As a film-maker, Vernon's work includes directing and producing A Charmed Life, a documentary about the Caribbean contribution in the UK during World War II, focusing on Jamaican ex-serviceman Eddie Martin Noble.[58][59][39][60] This led in November 2010 to "Speaking Out and Standing Firm", a programme (developed by Every Generation in partnership with Haringey Library Services) in which Vernon facilitated inter-generational workshops, with young people from North London interviewing war veterans, ex-service men and women from World War II and modern-day peacekeeping and international conflicts.[61][62]

Among the outlets for which Vernon writes are The Guardian, The Voice,[22] and Media Diversified.[63] In 2017, the 30th anniversary of Black History Month in Britain, he was appointed as guest editor for Black History Month Magazine.[64][65]

As MC Patrick Vernon, he presents Museum of Grooves, a podcast that explores Afrofuturism.[66][67]

• "Charmed life", The Guardian, 4 November 2009.
• "Windrush Day: a fitting way to celebrate our immigrant population", The Guardian, 25 January 2010.
• "Put race equality in mental health back on the agenda", The Guardian, 1 March 2011.
• "'How I Tried To Trace My Roots Back To Africa'", The Gleaner (Jamaica), 18 May 2011.
• "Why we must tackle racial inequality in mental health services", The Guardian, 18 January 2012.
• "Pieces Of The Past?", The Voice, 26 June 2012.
• "The problem of Black ephemera", Operation Black Vote (OBV), 29 June 2012.
• "Obama Puts Black Britain In The ‘Yes We Can’ Mood", The Voice, 28 January 2013.
• "Windrush Day: Time For A Public Holiday To Celebrate", The Voice, 22 June 2013.
• "Origins Of Black History Month In Britain", The Voice, 10 October 2013.
• "Remembrance Sunday: Don't Forget Our West Indian Heroes", The Voice, 10 November 2013.
• "How Nelson Mandela Inspired Black Britain", The Voice, 9 December 2013.
• "What 12 Years a Slave tells us about 21st century black mental health", The Guardian, 5 February 2014.
• "As Caribbean nations call for compensation, it's time for Britain to examine its own history in the slave trade", The Independent, 12 March 2014.
• "The Price Tag on Slavery is Beyond Pounds and Dollars", Media Diversified, 28 March 2014.
• "The Words 'Lest We Forget' Are Not Always Enough", The Voice, 15 March 2015.
• "Protecting The Legacy Of The Windrush Generation", The Voice, 17 June 2015.
• "Where are all the Black historians?", Media Diversified, 30 March 2016.
• "Rubbishing Mary Seacole is another move to hide the contributions of black people", The Guardian, 21 June 2016.
• "Black History Month: A Time To Celebrate", The Voice, 8 October 2016.
• "We hoped to see more black lives on our screens. Our hopes were dashed", The Guardian, 18 November 2016.
• "Is 2017 The Year Of Action For Black Britons?", The Voice, 7 January 2017.
• "The Windrush shaped Britain. Why not recognise that?", The Guardian, 9 May 2018.
• "Scandals Like Windrush Show Why Black History Month Must Be Celebrated", HuffPost (UK), 5 October 2018.