Researching the Raised Fist symbol in anti-colonial and anti-racist posters in the People's History Museum's political poster

Public history and decolonisation are vitally linked. It is critical for our understanding of history that we exorcise the colonial preconceptions that have permeated traditional narratives for centuries, and conducting this process in public is equally important as this is the way to change broader attitudes. My proposed project ties these two things together, taking the expansive poster collection of the People's History Museum as a starting point to study anti-racist activism, and producing online exhibitions to share my findings with the public. Central to the movement's imagery is the raised fist symbol, which appears remarkably often on these posters but has not received the academic attention that it merits.
I would begin my research with the posters. Historians can often shy away from visual sources because of their subjectivity; there is always a gap between authorial intent and audience interpretation, which can make it difficult to know what the source is actually telling us. Difficult, but I believe still worth making the attempt because artists usually pay attention to every detail they put into their work, be it a poster or a mural or some other form, so that each is rich with potential clues for historians as they attempt to piece together ideas and motives. Having built a wealth of research, in the second year I would focus more on the public history element. I would create the blogs, podcasts, and online exhibitions that give the project its impact, using my research to highlight the diversity of British history. This interchange between public engagement and academic research will then be the basis of my third year. I will reflect on the online resources I created in the second year and especially how the public interacted with them. This will enable me to consider public history more broadly, and the ways in which heritage projects can grapple with the difficulties of presenting decolonial history.