NEW CENTURY BLACK BRITAIN

Writings from a Cyber-Scholar’s Journal
On The  Chronicleworld’s 20th anniversary 1997-2017

By Thomas L Blair  21 October 2017  copyright reserved

chronicl logoBlack Britain crossed the boundaries from protest to parliamentary politics in the millennial years, 1997-2017. This 20th anniversary series of articles records the issues and ideals that crossed the centuries to impact on contemporary debates.

I’ve often wondered what propelled me, the scholar, into cyber-action. Why was online journalism my choice of expression? I found the answer in my first interview as the Chronicleworld hit the national headlines.

“Power to the People, via the Internet

“A new online journal is providing a new media voice for black community. Vanessa Thorpe* talks to Professor Thom Blair about his hopes for the ‘Chronicle’. (Autumn 1997)

 “By now we all know the problem. We know government has difficulty solving problems in areas with a great concentration of black people. But there is still a hope that Africans and Afro-Caribbean can use their own creative energies right where they live.”

So argues Professor Thom Blair, the indomitable consultant sociologist who brings out the second issue of his digital magazine at the end of the month.

The chronicle, which went online last month, is certainly an ambitious project. Sitting at a screen in his Hertfordshire home, the Professor wants to reach the whole new generation of young black achievers. He wants them to read The Chronicle and he wants them to contribute.

“We don’t know who is out there,’ he explains, “And finding these new voices is the role of the Net because there is a blanket over many aspects of the media that stops it highlighting the existence of most blacks- except- rapists and criminals.”