BRITAIN: A Ugandan-born lawyer with firm anti-racist credentials has become the first black diocesan bishop in the Church of England. The Right Rev John Sentamu, who was appointed Bishop of Birmingham yesterday, is currently the suffragan Bishop of Stepney in east London.
Bishop Sentamu replaces the Right Rev Mark Santer (65), who is stepping down after 15 years as bishop of one of the most diverse dioceses in the Church of England.
Born in 1949, Bishop Sentamu is a high-profile, charismatic anti-racist campaigner who in the past has accused the Church of England of being institutionally racist. In 1997 he was an adviser to the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager, by a gang of white youths and the resulting police investigation. The inquiry subsequently branded the Metropolitan Police "institutionally racist".
In January 2000, Bishop Sentamu said he had been stopped and searched by police officers while driving near St Paul's Cathedral, London. A scarf he was wearing was covering his clerical collar.
Bishop Sentamu left Uganda as Idi Amin began his reign of terror. He was ordained in 1979 and in 1983 became a vicar in south London.
Although he becomes the highest-ranking black bishop in the Church of England, he is not the only one from an ethnic minority: the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali - one of the presumed candidates to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury - is of Pakistani origin. Bishop Wilfred Wood of Croydon, south London, is the only other black suffragan bishop in the church.
The new bishop was introduced to the city of Birmingham by the Bishop John Austin of Aston at a Church of England School in Sparkhill.