2008 | The first plaque

A Broader History of Racism

One of the first physical memorials to David Oluwale was unveiled in August 2008. The plaque was the result of a project that commemorated the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. This anniversary was marked with a range of public history events, spanning from the designation of a new International Slavery Museum in Liverpool to local history projects carried out by community groups.

In Leeds, the Peepal Tree Press, which supports Caribbean writing, secured Arts Council funding to commission a creative writing project. It asked a group of writers – named the ‘FWords’ – to produce a collection of short stories and poetry responding to the theme of freedom. During the project, the FWords were inspired to produce a poem about David Oluwale’s story.

The poem focuses on David Oluwale’s African heritage and connects his death to a broader history of racism, invoking both his story and the slave trade.

It reads:

Freedom suspended over water
Afrikan pride swallowed like debris
Now the river reveals its secrets
It sings Oluwale
God has come home
Sun un re o o!

This poem was inscribed on a plaque at the end of the FWords project.

Location, Location, Location

The plaque was unveiled in the small Chapeltown Memorial Gardens (now the Mary Seacole Memorial Garden) on Chapeltown Road. This is at the heart of an area that has long been associated with Leeds black community.

The site is also very close to another, earlier form of remembrance.

Around the time of the 1971 trial of Geoffrey Ellerker and Kenneth Kitching, a member of Leeds Afro-West Indian Brotherhood painted the words ‘REMEMBER OLUWALE’ in huge white letters on a stone wall opposite the Hayfield Pub. This wall, which has since been demolished, ran along Reginald Terrace, joining Chapeltown Road just metres away from the Memorial Gardens.

A second plaque

The FWords plaque caused some controversy after it was unveiled because it stated that David Oluwale’s body had been found on the 10 April 1969, when in fact he was discovered in the River Aire on 4 May 1969.

The David Oluwale Memorial Association supported the creation of a second plaque to rectify this error. In October 2021, a plaque bearing the poet Ian Duhig’s ‘Aroko for David Oluwale’ was unveiled next to the original FWords memorial.

Both poems refer to the Yoruba meaning of Oluwale – ‘God has come home’.

At the time of writing both plaque have been removed to allow the relandscaping of the Mary Seacole Memorial Garden. We hope they will be returned.