Administrative/Biographical History

On the Record are a not-for-profit co-operative (registered as a Community Interest Company), co-founded by Laura Mitchison and Rosa Schling. The organisation specialises in oral history and community archiving projects. Funding is secured for each new project from external funders, for instance the Heritage Lottery Fund. The organisation works as a co-operative, with each project relying on volunteers and participants to shape the outcome and aims. This collaborative approach means that everyone involved with a project plays an active role in recording the histories and making decisions about how the outputs are shared with others.

The Fighting SUS Project was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and managed by On The Record and Journey to Justice. It was developed in conversation with today’s young east Londoners, who are galvanised by their own experiences of exclusion from public spaces and awareness of racism. The project offered twenty 16-25 year-olds a chance to learn interviewing, audio recording, research, drama production and writing/publishing skills from professionals. Young researchers scoured the archives to find their first clues about the ‘SUS’ era.

Armed with intensive research and oral history training, the young people recorded interviews with campaigners, cultural commentators, police, and victims of police harassment. The Project culminated in a touring performance and teaching resources that travelled around schools and cultural centres in late 2018.

Scope and Content

Archive of the Fighting SUS Project, including: oral histories conducted as part of the Fighting SUS project, including interviews with Hugh Boatswain, Richard Stone, Mike Franklin, Pauline Brown, Helen McDonald, Parvaz 'Goga' Khan, Cilius Victor and Martha Osamor, discussing their experiences of the SUS laws, stop and search, policing practice and racial prejudice in London, along with an interview with project participants on their experience of the project, 2018 ; Project archive for the Fighting SUS Project, including: evaluation interview with project participants, recordings of the Fighting SUS performance at the Brady Arts Centre, recordings made at events at Kings College, the Ringcross Community Centre and at the project finale at Raven Row; animated timeline, film and learning resources produced by the Fighting SUS Project, 2018-2019.

Quantity

13 wav files, 16 pdf files, 83 jpg files, 22 mov files, 13 doc files, 1 mp4 file.