Newington Green Meeting House

DRAG SUPERSTAR CRYSTAL (RuPaul's Drag Race UK Season 1) hosts a night celebrating the drag stories and legacy of the GAY LIBERATION FRONT with STUART FEATHER (once arrested in full Mary Whitehouse drag in 1971) and Living Legend LAVINIA CO-OP of radical drag theatre troupe BLOOLIPS.

The GLF harnessed the power and politics of drag in their actions and campaigns, most notoriously against Mary Whitehouse's Festival of Light (feat. Cliff Richard) in 1971. After the heyday of the GLF, activist and performer Bette Bourne formed the radical drag theatre troupe BLOOLIPS, featuring, among others Lavinia Co-op and Gretal Feather, who toured Britain, Europe and America. 

An evening to explore the potential drag has to bring about social change and make people sit up and notice, based on the incredible stories of the GLF and Bloolips. 

An event as part of the GLF AT 50; THE ART OF PROTEST exhibition at Newington Green Meeting House in 2021

Blog reading by Rose Heatley at Newington Green Meeting House. Recorded and Edited by Lydia Boffey and Steven Morrison

https://www.ngmh.org.uk/blog/lady-mary-abney

Blog reading by Rose Heatley at Newington Green Meeting House. Recorded and Edited by Lydia Boffey and Steven Morrison 

https://www.ngmh.org.uk/blog/what-does-the-controversy-around-a-sculpture-for-mary-wollstonecraft-tell-us-about-mary-wollstonecrafts-intellectual-legacy

Blog reading by Rose Heatley at Newington Green Meeting House. Recorded and Edited by Lydia Boffey and Steven Morrison 

https://www.ngmh.org.uk/blog/william-ellery-channing-and-matilda-sharpes-girls-school

Join speakers live in the Meeting House and beamed in from Belfast and Sheffield to explore national perspectives on the topic of ‘Fashion and Class’. From dissecting Mod and Mod revival culture and trying to get to its working class roots and how that plays out today, to learning more about how dress, poverty and working class culture intersect within Irish history – we will be skimming the surface of this fascinating topic. Guests include: Lucas Gomersall, Bob Morris, Eliza McKee, Mercedez Mendy and Jessica Pierre Ross. Stick around afterwards for a drink, mingle and to check out the installation in the new exhibition "Identities, a retrospective" by Jessica Ross & Mercedez Mendy in our exhibition space upstairs too.

‘Not one homogenous lump’ – We’ll be joined by a panel of guests sharing their diverse experience of class and how this intersects with many other characteristics and experiences. Join us to hear from lived experience on how class intersects with race, mental health, living with disability, being a member of the LGBTQ+ community and more. – This event will be recorded and released as a podcast on Spotify afterwards. There will be live auto-transcription at this event.

This is a snippet from our "How do we teach our working class histories and stories?" event where we heard from teachers, professors, researchers, historians and musicians on this important question. Featuring Three Acres and A Cow, teacher Seb Packham, Professor Edith Hall and more.

As part of the Common People 2021 Festival, Newington Green Meeting House played host to a one-off podcast. Hosted by the festival curators Amy Todd and Mercedes Mendy with guests Lil Warren, Cheryl Smith and Karena Johnson 

Hear from activists, historians and professionals working today on the theme of “Working Women: Past and Present”.

In this panel discussion, guests will discuss a wide range of topics such as;

With guests:

Cheryl-Lya Broadfoot - Soul’s Compass

Veronica Deutsch - Nanny Solidarity Network

Susan Fajana - Thomas - Hackney Council

Amy Todd - Speaking on the work of the Peckham Publishing Project

Helen Young - Modern Slavery Response Team, Hestia

https://ngmh.org.uk/

Weekly online discussions inspired by the history of Radicalism  What is dissent? Which stories get told? Who is remembered and who is forgotten? From the historical home of dissenters and abolitionists, this series of talks aims to uncover histories of radicalism from the bottom up, finding inspiration from the past and hope in the present.

Each week speakers will share their thoughts, research and experience on the following topics before a group discussion will take place. The first four weeks of this programme will focus on the following topics:

Week 1 (June 2nd) Anti-Colonial Dissent: Reckoning with the past – Slave Revolts and Abolition  Speaker: Gurminder K Bhambra speaking on the Haitian Revolution  Speaker: Ali Meghji on Du Bois: past and present

Week 2 (June 16th) Defining Violence’ – What is deemed ‘violence’? Who gets to be violent and who gets to resist?  Speaker: Akanksha Mehta  Speaker: Ruba Salih

Week 3 (June 30th) Dissenting academies and Radical Education  Speaker: Kehinde Andrews on Black radicalism and the supplementary school movement  Speaker: Ken Worpole  Ken Worpole is a writer and social historian who between 1969 and 1973 worked as an English teacher at Hackney Downs School. This was a time when teachers began challenging the curriculum for failing to recognise that Britain was already by then a multi-cultural society. Ken went on to work with the radical Hackney bookshop Centerprise to encourage and publish work by young black and working class students that could be used to enlarge the range and subject matter of literature and history that could be used in the classroom.

Week 4 (July 14th) Radical coalitions – thinking across lines of division  Speaker: Annie Olaloku-Teriba on Black radical coalitions

https://www.newingtongreenalliance.org/

https:/ngmh.org.uk/