THE life of Guyanese-born Cy Grant, whose extensive career spanned acting, song writing, black rights activism and the Royal Air Force, will be celebrated by a project at London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) to inspire young people, and raise awareness of his achievements.Documents, manuscripts, photographs and films dating from the 1940s to 2010, which chart Grant’s life and form part of the Cy Grant Archive, will be catalogued and made public for the first time, following an award of a £79,800 (US$115,711) grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to the Cy Grant Trust.

Grant, who died at age 90 in 2010, was enlisted as a Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant Navigator in the Second World War, and also worked as a singer/songwriter, broadcaster, writer, multi-ethnic arts community organiser and activist.

He was also the first black person to feature regularly on UK television, chiefly because of his appearances on the BBC current affairs programme ‘Tonight’ with the late Cliff Michelmore.

In 2014, Grant’s family deposited the Cy Grant Archive at LMA and a year later the Cy Grant Trust, LMA and Windrush Foundation formed a partnership to oversee the archive project, which builds on a growing number of collections deposited at LMA by the Black African Caribbean community.

Director of London Metropolitan Archives Geoff Pick said the LMA was “delighted that we have been entrusted with the Cy Grant Archive and have become a key partner in preserving and making accessible this outstanding collection that traces the life and work of a very special Londoner and hero of the Black Caribbean community.”

The project will connect young people to Grant and encourage them to learn about his achievements. Original source material will be made available to the public through youth/inter-generational workshops and events, a school education pack, online resources, and an exhibition hosted by the Marcus Garvey Library in Tottenham. Screenings will take place at The British Film Institute and LMA.

The project will run until spring 2017, with a final celebration event to launch the archive catalogue. The full release of the final catalogue will be available in 2017 by viewing London Metropolitan Archives’ online catalogue.

Grant was born in Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara, Guyana. He was an actor, singer and writer who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on British television.

Following service in the Royal Air Force during World War II, he worked as an actor and singer. He was certified a barrister and then became interested in acting.

He sang the original version of the world wide hit “Feeling Good” (later made famous by Michael Buble) in the Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse stage play “The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd” opening night at the theater Royal Nottingham, England on August 03, 1964.
He collaborated with John Mapondera to set up the Drum Arts Centre in London in the 1974, which was considered a landmark in the development of black theater. He was appointed director of Concord Multicultural Festivals in the early 1980s.

His screen, recording and writing credits are too many to mention as his career spanned over 60 years. Cy Grant was the great-grandson of a slave and one of seven children born to a Moravian minister and a music teacher.