Bradford

Mrs Etienne is a well respected member of Bradford’s Black community and has been Instrumental in the Credit Union which was established over 50 years ago and is still going to this day.  Started with Father Felix, the Credit Union is the oldest Black organisation in Bradford and pre-dates them all, including Checkpoint, MAPA, ACAP and the DA.

Along with her late husband, Mr Etienne, together they created the hugely popular La Salette annual celebration that is a street festival that takes place at the Dominica Association. The event sees hundreds of members of Bradford’s community come together to celebrate.

Mrs Etienne is humble by nature and has a tendency to downplay her enormous contribution to Bradford, and to the lives of many of our people. She has been Instrumental in the community and is still carrying it forward to this day. 

She is one of the true unsung heroes that people don’t always know about because she stays in the background. A humble woman who does not realise the significance of her contribution, Bradford is proud to have her as this year’s finalist.

Huddersfield

Roy Augustine Noel (AKA Power} came to England 1955. He first stayed in London before moving to Huddersfield in 1956 where he worked in the mills. Roy is a revered figure in Huddersfield due to his many contributions to the community as well as his work as an unofficial social worker.

Roy started a black community centre and went on to form the first steel band in Huddersfield – this was done the old fashion way with pans around the neck up to the park!

Roy started the Black Star Social Club which looked at issues on race discrimination also unfair treatment for children at school. The official name of the organisation was African Descendants Brotherhood Union (ADBU) and connected to other organisations across the country. 

Leeds

Joe Williams is an actor and researcher. He has a background in theatre-in-education and uses the arts to bring ‘life’ to historic figures of African heritage in Yorkshire’s history.

From Black arts development work with partners in the city, Joe began to engage with historic archival material with the Diasporian Stories Research Group (1993). Following a 4 year programme (2005-09) facilitating arts projects for the Chapeltown based Leeds Bi-Centenary Transformation Project, Joe then created the award winning Leeds Black History Walk (2009).

He formed Heritage Corner (2014) to develop arts projects and build further partnerships in the region to promote African diasporan heritage. Heritage Corner has grown to deliver presentations, generate specialist events and facilitate inclusive Black History walks in different areas of Leeds and have also delivered walks in Sheffield and Bradford. Most notably, Heritage Corner itself created history, by being the first to conduct a Black History walk of Harewood House, a stately home built on the proceeds of West Indian sugar.

Joe is keen that young people should not go through the ‘history void’ like previous generations and that they are able to connect positively with Africa’s rich history and great contributions to humanity.