Stephen Bourne

stephen bourne

Biography

Historian of black Britain and Metropolitan Police advisor, Stephen Bourne was raised on a council estate in Peckham. He left school at the age of sixteen with no qualifications and went to work as a sales assistant in a Peckham shoe shop. A number of jobs followed, including working for the DHSS, nursery officer, kitchen porter and cinema usher, until an opportunity to study for a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Film and Video at the London College of Printing changed his life forever.

After graduating in 1988, Stephen worked for the British Film Institute as a Research Officer on a ground-breaking project that documented the history of black people in British television. The result was a two-part television documentary called Black and White in Colour (1992), directed by Isaac Julien.

Since the 1990s Stephen has written a number of books (see Books) and organised many film and television events (see National Film Theatre).

In 1991 Stephen was a founder member of the Black and Asian Studies Association with, amongst others, Hakim Adi, Jeffrey Green, Roger Lambo, Howard Rye and Marika Sherwood.

In 1992 Stephen undertook pioneering work with Southwark Council and the Metropolitan Police as an independent advisor (see Metropolitan Police).

In 2008 Stephen researched Keep Smiling Through - Black Londoners on the Home Front-1945, an exhibition for the Cuming Museum in the London Borough of Southwark, and worked as a historical consultant on the Imperial War Museum’s War to Windrush exhibition.

Stephen is currently working on his eleventh book, Mother Country - Britain’s Black Community on the Home Front 1939-1945 (due 2010).

Stephen is a member of the Peckham Society, Camberwell Society, Black and Asian Studies Association, Gay Police Association, Society of Authors, and Southwark Council’s Black History Month Advisory Group.