Dorothy Kuya Library and Personal Archive

Dorothy Kuya was a tireless campaigner against discrimination and racism. Born and brought up in Liverpool, she became the first Community Relations Officer on Merseyside in the 1960s, later moving to London as Head Race Equality Adviser for Haringey Council. On returning to Liverpool, Dorothy was a key figure in the community, involved in the setting up of the International Slavery Museum and playing a leading part in the Granby Residents Association. Dorothy’s family have loaned her personal archive and library to the International Slavery Museum’s collection, which, once sorted and catalogued, will be made available to the public for research. June 2023 update: following a cataloguing project, the collection is now broadly accessible to researchers. Please contact The Archives Centre https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/archives-centre to obtain a copy of the catalogue and details on how to access the collection. Briefly the book collection covers the following themes: women/feminism, transatlantic slavery, Africa, America, UK & Liverpool, Race/identity, biography (with narratives from enslaved people), fiction, poetry/literature, arts, education, communist party publications, religion, journals/pamphlets. The archive is arranged into the following categories: Diaries and notebooks, Correspondence, Education & Learning, Teaching (includes teacher training material with large artworks in oversized boxes, documents with names and addresses of pupils have been closed), Community Relations Council (includes material from national community relations commission and National Council on Racial in Children’s Books NCRCB), Kensington, Haringey (includes material from NALGO trade union), Watford, NorthWest Network, Consultancy (includes Race Awareness Programme Unit RAPU, Affirmata and DK Consultancy), Broadwater Farm (some interview submissions have been closed), Women’s Organisations (includes National Assembly of Women, Women’s International Democratic Federation, Women of the Year Association and Women for Racial and Economic Equality), Campaigns (arranged into Liverpool, London, National and International), Uganda, Conferences (some events where Dorothy was either a speaker or a delegate, others not known). Some sections have been identified but are still to be catalogued: Reports and publications, Press and Media, Training sources, Photographs, Wider leisure interests.