Black Poppies: Britain's Black Community and the Great War

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They commemorate all victims of all wars, both military and civilians of all nationalities, and seek to bring to an end “the exclusion of civilians from mainstream Remembrance events”. The remembrance poppy has become the defining symbol of reverence for the millions of soldiers who lost their lives in conflict. In the present day the ‘poppy appeal’, organised by The Royal British Legion, takes place in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Sunday, which occurs on the Sunday nearest to Armistice Day. The poppy appeal raises money for those who have served or are currently serving in the armed forces and have subsequently been affected physically, mentally or economically by war. The history of the poppy as a symbol of respect for the war dead is now almost one hundred years old. Since the appeal’s inception in 1921, the poppy has become an international symbol of remembrance for those who have given their lives defending their respective countries. According to the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), the body which distributes them today, white poppies represent three things: remembrance for all victims of war, commitment to peace and a challenge to the glamorisation of conflict. Next year is the centenary of the Etaples Mutiny, one of many rebellions during WW1 which informed plans by the fearful British establishment to crush its own returning soldiers. The pacifist white poppy has risen in prominence over recent years. (Photo: Symon Hill) What is the significance of the white poppy?

Their rebellion lives on. Just... Given today's austerity it must made be clear that nobody in parliament or elsewhere can hand these hard-won institutions to private capital and still claim to be a friend of soldiers. These were soldiers who came to the cause of justice and were later betrayed, outmanoeuvred and crushed by their generals. In 1920, there were numerous acts of Remembrance across Britain, such as two-minute silence, the burial of the unknown warrior and the unveiling of the Cenotaph in London. But at this point we can see that the poppy was not yet the flower of Remembrance that we think of it as today. The white flowers stand for three things: remembrance of all victims of war, challenging war and militarism and a commitment to peace. In 2014, 800,000 ceramic copies designed by Paul Cummings and Tom Piper went on display at the Tower of London. Two parts of this installation later went on tour around the UK to 19 different locations before ending up at IWM London in 2018.From 1914 to 1918, World War I took a greater human toll than any previous conflict, with some 8.5 million soldiers dead of battlefield injuries or disease. The Great War, as it was then known, also ravaged the landscape of Western Europe, where most of the fiercest fighting took place. From the devastated landscape of the battlefields, the red poppy would grow and, thanks to a famous poem, become a powerful symbol of remembrance.

But not everyone wears a red poppy. Instead, some choose to wear different colours of poppy to draw attention to different causes and campaigns. Maintaining the iconic poppy design and leaf shape, this is the first time in 28 years that a new poppy has been developed.

After the Napoleonic Wars, military veterans were involved in democratic upsurges in the face of oppression such as at the ill-fated Peterloo Demonstration of 1819 where a young Waterloo veteran was murdered by the state for the crime of activism.

The poppy's status as a recognisable symbol of Remembrance and its use as a fundraising tool began after the war and this was primarily driven by the work of two different women. This year marks 100 years since the first time artificial poppies were first sold in Britain to raise money for ex-servicemen and the families of those who had died in the First World War.It is estimated that 8,000,000 donkeys and horses were killed during the First World War. Comparatively, the war took the lives of 9.7 million military personnel. When Britain was an empire, it benefited from the colonies which were part of it. I am a result of those contributions. I started this project five years ago, as I felt that in the country I call home, the history that represents me is missing.