MC-ers!
How exciting was Monday?! The Magna Carta was all over the
news, Google did a special tribute to it, some members of our team went to a
fancy event also attended by the Queen. It was crazy!
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| Celebrations at Runnymede on Monday (www.bbc.co.uk) |
This was of course because Monday was the exact 800th
anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta - 800 years to the day since King
John and the barons met at Runnymede and initiated the process of people in
Britain and beyond gaining rights and democracy.
Just in case you missed it, here’s a handy BBC article
recapping some of Monday’s celebrations:
Anyway that was Monday, this is now. Let’s keep the
excitement going…
You know that special Magna Carta symposium we’re hosting here
at Oxford Brookes University? Of course you do, you’ll have read all about it
in this blog post at the start of April: www.oxfordbrookesmagnacarta.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/activities-you-can-get-involved-in.html
Well, it’s TOMORROW and in a final flourish of excitement we
are thrilled to announce that the key note speaker will be none other than the MOBO
Award winning rapper Akala!
As well as being a hugely successful rap artist Akala is
also both active and acclaimed as a poet, historian and journalist. He writes
for the Huffington Post and has appeared on BBC3 to speak about issues such as
human rights and freedom of speech - issues that are clearly linked to the
Magna Carta. We are absolutely delighted that he has agreed to speak at our
event and we can’t wait to hear his views on the Magna Carta and what it still
means to the world today.
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| Akala (www.theguardian.com) |
And it gets better - there are still a small number of places
available at the symposium!
So if you’re a student in Year 9-13* and you’d like to come
along then please check with your teachers and then drop us an e-mail at magnacarta2015@brookes.ac.uk.
You’ll have to be quick though!
If you can’t make it tomorrow however but you’d still like
to learn a bit more about Akala then we recommend checking out the following:
Akala’s website: www.akalamusic.com
And his legendary half-an-hour long BBC 1Xtra’s ‘Fire in the
Booth’ rap freestyle in which he addresses numerous social issues,
many of which have clear links to the Magna Carta:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh03JO6EFjo
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh03JO6EFjo
Enjoy, and we hope to see you tomorrow,
The Oxford Brookes Magna Carta Team
*We're really sorry if you're younger than Year 9, we just have to have a cut-off point for age otherwise we won't be able to fit everyone in.
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