{"id":35313,"date":"2017-06-23T14:36:39","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T14:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/first-war-memorial-to-afro-caribbean-soldiers\/"},"modified":"2017-06-23T14:36:48","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T14:36:48","slug":"first-war-memorial-to-afro-caribbean-soldiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/first-war-memorial-to-afro-caribbean-soldiers\/","title":{"rendered":"First war memorial to Afro-Caribbean soldiers unveiled in London"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Britain&#8217;s first memorial to the African and Caribbean soldiers of the First and Second World Wars has been unveiled in London.}<\/p>\n<p>An estimated two million Afro-Caribbean soldiers fought in both world wars.<\/p>\n<p>The sculpture, in Windrush Square, Brixton, is formed of two 6ft (1.8m) long obelisks, with a combined weight of just under five tonnes.<\/p>\n<p>Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said the &#8220;recognition today is long overdue&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He added: &#8220;I hope this memorial will remind us of the ongoing contribution of our African and Caribbean communities to our country and to the defence of our country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Allan Willmott, who served in the Royal Navy in WWII, said he did not dream he would be around to see anything like this happen.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nothing was done to make the contribution made by the African and West Indian service men known,&#8221; the 92-year-old said.<\/p>\n<p>Countries across the Caribbean and Africa were profoundly affected during the world wars, sending manpower, materials, and funds to aid the war effort.<\/p>\n<p>Over 165,000 troops from the African continent alone died during the conflicts.<\/p>\n<p>The memorial had been on display at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton in 2014.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-21014 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_96600638_warmemorial_1_.jpg\" alt=\"The memorial had been on display at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton in 2014.\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Britain&#8217;s first memorial to the African and Caribbean soldiers of the First and Second World Wars has been unveiled in London.} An estimated two million Afro-Caribbean soldiers fought in both world wars. The sculpture, in Windrush Square, Brixton, is formed of two 6ft (1.8m) long obelisks, with a combined weight of just under five tonnes. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-35313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35313"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=35313"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=35313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}