Abstract
This article begins by providing a short history of the national heritage centre Black Cultural Archives, located in Brixton, London and founded in 1981. Also discussed are the social and political contexts which contributed to its inception. This piece then provides an overview of the organisation’s collections and collecting methods. We foreground Black Cultural Archives interventions in the construction of narratives around Black life and culture and the importance of self-representation. Moving outwards we introduce the McKenzie Heritage Picture Archives, a collection on loan from photographer Anita J. McKenzie to Black Cultural Archives. The McKenzie Heritage Picture Archives was a commercial photographic agency specializing in images of Black and Asian life. The collection is currently being catalogued through a cataloguing grant provided by The National Archives. We provide biographic information on McKenzie and discuss her decision to found the agency. Finally, we discuss the types of material within the collection and the aims of the cataloguing project.
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