Zephaniah to be celebrated at Windrush Day event

Poet and actor Benjamin Zephaniah is to be honoured posthumously at Windrush Day celebrations in Birmingham.

The main stage at a festival, due to take place in Centenary Square on Saturday to mark the day, will be named after the writer, who played a starring role in the BBC's Peaky Blinders.

The 65-year-old, from Handsworth, Birmingham, died in December eight weeks after he was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Performances will take place on the stage throughout the day, the 76th anniversary of Windrush Day, culminating in a music extravaganza by Wassifa Showcase.

The Benjamin Zephaniah Stage will be opened by Reverend Canon Eve Pitts before one of Zephaniah’s poems is recited by poet and TV presenter Sue Brown.

Organised by the Blackstory Partnership, the event will also involve the raising of the Windrush flag and a carnival procession featuring up to 90 dancers.

The government announced in 2018 that 22 June would become National Windrush Day.

It marks the day in 1948 when people from Jamaica and a number of other Caribbean islands disembarked from the SS Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks in London.

The countries were under British rule when World War Two came to an end and they answered the government's call to help rebuild the so-called “mother country”.

Zephaniah often spoke about the importance of the history and contribution of the Windrush generation, releasing his novel Windrush Child in 2020.

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