Celebrate Bristol’s revolutionary spirit and fight for your rights with Bristol Radical History Festival

Celebrate Bristol’s revolutionary spirit and fight for your rights with Bristol Radical History Festival

Posted on: 09 Apr 2024

The 6th annual Bristol Radical History Festival is set to return next weekend, April 20 – and it’s twice as big as before.

 

“Any movement which is ignorant of its own history is a prisoner of other people’s history. We can’t possibly win the future unless we keep our hands on our own past.” - Gwyn Alf Adams.

 

Bristol is something of an iconoclastic enclave – a nexus of anarchist, communal dreams that refuses to lie down and accept corrupt authority, bigotry, or systematic oppression; a settlement in the mould of the medieval free cities of old, so fiercely bizarre, and bizarrely fierce.

 

But free spirit and communal fire like that isn’t easily won – and isn’t hard to forget. That’s why it’s so important that we have access to events like Bristol Radical History festival. Bristol Radical History Festival is a festival of talks, films, workshops and other events celebrating the people of Bristol, and what they’ve done (and are doing) to win our freedoms.

 

 

Excitingly, this 6th edition of the festival is expanding – doubling the length of the festival to take place over two days, Saturday 20 April and Sunday 21 April, and two venues, M Shed and The Cube Microplex. The programme is stuffed to the gills with events, almost all of which are free entry. As well as the main body of the festival, there’s a special “Opening the Archives” event this Saturday where the public can browse a choice selection of radical history literature from Bristol Reference Library.

 

Beginning the festival proper, the Saturday takes place at M Shed with a series of interesting talks, such as ‘War Zones: Bristolians who went to struggle for a better world’, detailing the lives of Bristolians who have taken up arms in international revolutions from the Spanish civil war, to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the Zapatista rebellion.

Also at M Shed is ‘Workhouses and Madhouses: Histories of mental health and social care in Bristol’, and ‘Doing Radical History: a DIY guide’. Finally, M Shed will also be the staging point for three different radical history walks (including the ‘real story’ of the Countering Colston campaign), and a series of exhibitions, including an expanded exhibition in the protest gallery examining Bristolian riots.

 

Sunday will see a series of talks at the Cube, from a talk on autonomous working-class education, to further talks on the Spanish civil war and more, as well as a guided walk exploring the history of squatting from the Bristol Squatted project. Finally, the festival will cap off with its one paid event (which is still only £5 a ticket): a screening of Walter Rodney: What They Don’t Want You To Know. Exploring the life of Walter Rodney, a revolutionary Guyanese academic and Black Power activist, capped off by a talk by co-director Arlen Harris and Luke Daniels of Caribbean Labour Solidarity.

 

For tickets to the film screening, head here, or for a breakdown of the events and their times, check out the Headfirst page, or head to Bristol Radical History Society’s social media.

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Patrick Bate

Patrick is a filmmaker with so much Bristol in his blood the white blood cells are graffiti'd. Educated at the Northern Film School in Leeds, he’s returned home to be a Videographer and Reviewer for 365Bristol and BARBI. When he’s not messing about with cameras, he enjoys playing guitar, spending far too much time on tabletop RPGs, and being an awful snob about cider. Have a look at his work here, or get in touch at patrickb@365bristol.com.