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Black History Month 2024
October is Black History Month (BHM) in the UK, when we seek to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of Black people to British society and globally.
The theme for BHM 2024 is “Reclaiming Narratives,” marking the shift towards recognising and correcting the narratives of Black history and culture.
The University of London, The Senate House Library, The School of Advanced Study and its institutes have organised a programme of events and exhibitions to mark Black History Month.
This year’s BHM follows an outstanding series of events organised by the University in 2023, including a session of the acclaimed Black Men on the Couch series led by psychotherapist Rotimi Akinsete and featuring UoL honorary degree holders Gary Crosby OBE and George the Poet.
Highlights
Racial Justice Conference: Bridging Divides, Building Equality
The University’s Office for Equality and Inclusion will host its first Racial Justice Conference, “Bridging Divides, Building Equality”, on Tuesday 15 October in Beveridge Hall, Senate House.
This groundbreaking event will feature keynote speeches from trailblazers Josette Bushell-Mingo OBE, Principal of the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, and Dr Jessica Jones-Nielsen, Assistant Vice President (EDI–Race Equality) at City & St. Georges.
The day will also include a special performance by Doëlla, a soulful alternative-RnB artist straight from the heart of northwest London. She draws her inspiration from a medley of genres, from jazz and blues to reggae, bossa nova, and samba. Doëlla’s songs are embedded with a conscious message of peace, love and unity.
While the conference will highlight and assess the specific challenges and inequalities that racially minoritised people face in higher education, it will also be a joyful space showcasing the celebration that racial justice work brings to higher education and society. Please register via Eventbrite.
Cancelled: The Distinguished Speaker Series: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Update, 10 October 2024: We regret to inform you that this event has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We appreciate your understanding and we hope to welcome you to future events.
Changes in Light: Film screening and discussion event
Tuesday 22 October
18:00 - 19:30
IALS Council Chamber, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
No registration required
Join us for the screening of Changes in Light (18m 26), a short film on the colonial legacies that influence library design and the efforts to address these issues. (Tuesday 22 October, 18:00-19:30, IALS Council Chamber at Institute of Advanced Legal Studies).
Understanding our library collections through the lens of diversity, and stimulating public engagement with this work, is a key part of IALS Equality and Inclusion strategy. As part of this focus, in 2024, dance artist and scholar Anna Macdonald was invited to join IALS as their first practitioner in residence.
The residency led to the creation of a short film called Changes in Light (18m 26), directed and edited by the artist, which brings attention to the colonial legacies that influence library design and the importance of work being done to address this.
Made in collaboration with IALS Librarian Marilyn Clarke, library staff and videographer Marisa Zanotti, Changes in Light explores the impact of the affective qualities of libraries on those who use them as a way of revealing the colonial complexities of law itself. The film explores staff’s embodied responses to colonial legacies alongside an exploration of movement and light within the building, offering a nuanced perspective on the complexity of structural change within institutions.
After the screening, there will be an opportunity to get involved in a communal discussion and find out more about the work from Marilyn Clarke, Anna Macdonald, and Marisa Zanotti. Please be aware that this film and discussion will raise issues of decolonisation and archival practices within the library which may trigger racial trauma.
BHM at Senate House Library
Senate House Library is pleased to invite you to celebrate Black History Month 2024 by exploring its collections on this year’s theme, ‘Reclaiming Narratives’. Come to the Library or search the library catalogue … the librarians are happy to talk to you and help you find interesting items.
Please share the Senate House Library books you have enjoyed or found inspirational by adding them on this Padlet.
From 29 October 2024 until 28 March 2025, Senate House Library will host their latest exhibition: In the Grip of Change: the Caribbean and its British Diaspora.
Britain’s Caribbean colonies had been exploited for centuries, but increasing demands for self-determination emerging from riots and strikes during the 1930s forced Britain to introduce political reform. Progress towards self-government unfolded in stages between the 1960s and 1980s.
Today Britain retains six overseas territories in the Caribbean and is still linked to its former colonies through the Commonwealth. The process of decolonisation is ongoing.
This exhibition traces British Caribbean colonies’ paths to independence, highlighting the work of transnational activists. It also explores the Caribbean diaspora in Britain and how successive changes to immigration and nationality laws have culminated in the Windrush scandal.
Visitors can trace the journey from colony to independence and diaspora through a vibrant range of materials from Senate House Library's Caribbean and Black history collections. Items on display include pamphlets, posters, newspapers, comics, calypsos, poetry and badges. Visitors will have the opportunity to listen to new oral history recordings created as part of the AHRC-funded project ‘The Windrush Scandal in a Transnational and Commonwealth Context’.
UoL Black History Month Calendar
Wednesday 2 October
Memorial 2007 Annual Lecture with Sir Hilary M Beckles
18:30 - 21:00
Chancellor's Hall, Senate House
Register via Eventbrite
The Memorial 2007 Annual Lecture is hosted by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and will be delivered by Professor Sir Hilary M Beckles, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. The Global Reparations movement is arguably the most eruptive and influential political force sweeping the world. It is integrating the post-colonial global south into a transformative development discourse in relation to the legacies of colonisation in general and specifically the transatlantic enslavement of Africans for five centuries, undoubtedly one of the greatest crimes against Humanity in modernity. It is a global call for justice, equality, freedom and inclusive participation for all.
Senate House Library BHM starter event
12:00 – 14:00
Bloom @ Senate House, Lower Ground Floor, Senate House
No registration required
Please join us for a Black History Month at Senate House Library starter event in the Bloom @ Senate House space to meet the librarians and leaf through some of the highlights from our book display.
Wednesday 9 October
Local and Place-Based Black British History
17:30 – 19:00
Online (via Zoom)
Drawing together a panel of expert practitioners in place-based Black British history, this Institute of Historical Studies event will explore how established local and place-based history research could more effectively engage with their practices and research insights. For instance, what would be the implications of fully embracing place-based Black British history for long-standing projects like the Victoria County History project?
Thursday 10 October
SHL Archives drop-in session: ‘Records of Black student experience’ and ‘An early abolitionist: Bishop Beilby Porteus’
12:00 – 14:00
Seng Tee Lee Room, Senate House Library
No registration required
Join us for a lunchtime drop-in session looking at a selection of archives on the experiences of Black students in twentieth-century London. Discover how the issues of racism and prejudice against Black students were reflected in the University’s student union newspapers, from discussions over the ‘colour bar’ in the 1950s to the campaign in support of the Mangrove Nine Black activists in the 1970s and the fight against South African apartheid in the 1980s. Find out how the University of London supported Black students facing discrimination from documents in the University’s institutional archive and student union records. Learn about the aims and activities of Black student organisations like the West Indian Students’ Union through the records of the Black activist Billy Strachan.
Also featured in this drop-in session: An early abolitionist: Bishop Beilby Porteus
Beilby Porteus (1731-1809), Bishop of London, used his position to campaign vigorously against the slave trade. He also had a large collection of books and pamphlets that reflected his interests, including a strong section on slavery and anti-slavery. Come learn about Porteus and connect with the eighteenth century by exploring parts of his library.
Tuesday 15 October
Racial Justice Conference: “Bridging Divides, Building Equality”
10:00 –14:00
Beveridge Hall, Senate House
Register Here
Join us for our first racial justice conference, “Bridging Divides, Building Equality”, at Senate House. This groundbreaking event will feature keynote speeches from trailblazers Josette Bushell-Mingo OBE, Principal of the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, and Dr Jessica Jones-Nielsen, Assistant Vice President (EDI – Race Equality) at City & St. Georges. Lunch and networking opportunities will also be provided on the day, with a special performance by the jazz singer Doëlla.
Cancelled: The Distinguished Speaker Series: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Update, 10 October 2024: We regret to inform you that this event has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We appreciate your understanding and we hope to welcome you to future events.
Changes in Light: Film screening and discussion event
Tuesday 22 October
18:00 - 19:30
IALS Council Chamber, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
No registration required
Join us for the screening of Changes in Light (18m 26), a short film created during dance artist and scholar Anna Macdonald’s residency at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) in 2024. Directed by Macdonald and made in collaboration with IALS Head Librarian Marilyn Clarke and library staff and videographer Marisa Zanotti, the film examines the colonial legacies embedded in library design and explores the impact of the affective qualities of libraries on those who use them as a way of revealing the colonial complexities of law itself. The film also explores staff’s embodied responses to colonial legacies alongside an exploration of movement and light within the building, offering a nuanced perspective on the complexity of structural change within institutions.
After the screening, join a discussion with Anna Macdonald, Marilyn Clarke, and Marisa Zanotti to find out more about the work.
Tuesday 22 October
Caribbean Studies Seminar Series: Kout Kouto - Genocide in the Caribbean and the Stories of Betrayal
16:00 – 17:30
Online
Register via SAS website
Join this free seminar from the Centre for Latin American & Caribbean Studies' Caribbean Studies Seminar Series, featuring Sophie Maríñez, Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. This talk draws from a chapter in Maríñez’ book Spirals in the Caribbean: Representing Violence and Connection in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The chapter brings together constitutional legislations, the history of genocides, and their subsequent re-narrations, confirming once again how genocides do not take place in a vacuum but often stem from legal apparatuses, such as constitutions, court rulings, and decrees.
Tuesday 29 October
Senate House Library Exhibition: In the Grip of Change: the Caribbean and its British Diaspora29 October 2024 – 28 March 2025
Senate House Library
No registration required (Find out more)
This new exhibition from Senate House Library traces British Caribbean colonies’ paths to independence, highlighting the work of transnational activists. It also explores the Caribbean diaspora in Britain and how successive changes to immigration and nationality laws have culminated in the Windrush scandal.
Visitors can trace the journey from colony to independence and diaspora through a vibrant range of materials from Senate House Library's Caribbean and Black history collections. Items on display include pamphlets, posters, newspapers, comics, calypsos, poetry and badges. This exhibition will be accessible during the library's opening hours (Monday to Friday 09:00 - 19:00 and Saturday 09:45 - 17:00)
Language, Ancestral Wisdom and Anti-Racism: Perspectives from Afro-Brazilian Culture
15:00 - 16:00
Online (via Zoom)
Register here
Join us for an online conversation with linguist and writer Gabriel Nascimento dos Santos, whose work examines the relationship between language and racial inequality, and Mother Darabi (Alba Cristina Soares), a woman of many talents— poet, actress, and iyálorìṣa—whose life and work are a testament to the strength and resilience of Black ancestrality. Gabriel Nascimento dos Santos and Mother Darabi will be joined by CLACS director Jamille Pinheiro Dias. In this online event, we will delve into Blackness, anti-racism, ancestral wisdom, and the transformative power of language, art and spirituality. Gabriel Nascimento dos Santos is the author of the book Racismo linguístico: os subterrâneos da linguagem e do racismo ("Linguistic Racism: Beneath the Surface of Language and Racism," published by Editora Letramento in Brazil and still unpublished in English), which holds interest not only for language scholars but for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the complexities of racial inequality. Mother Darabi has dedicated her life to supporting those around her in navigating the challenges of systemic oppression, drawing on her spiritual heritage and connection to the orishas to inspire others. From her work in the terreiro—the physical location where the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé is practiced—to her poetic expressions, she embodies the spirit of resistance against structural racism and the power of reclaiming one's identity.
In Conversation: The Work of Gabriella Ghermandi and the Atse Tewodros Project
17:00 - 19:00
Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House
Register here
The work of renowned Ethiopian-Italian author, singer, and musician, Gabriella Ghermandi, was recently featured on the BBC website.
In this event held in person at Senate House, Gabriella will talk about the major developments of her career as a writer and as a musician, the themes that run through her work, and the challenges of moving between artistic media. She will discuss the writing of her book on Ethiopian memories of the Italian invasion and occupation of the country from 1935 to 1941, Regina di fiori e di perle (2007) [Queen of Flowers and Pearls]; she will reflect upon her work as a live performer, exploring how the Ethiopian experience of occupation has been experienced; and she will talk about her work as a singer and musician with the Atse Tewodros Project, an initiative that forges musical collaborations between Ethiopian and Italian musicians with whom she has worked since 2010 and with whom she has produced the new album Maqeda. The discussion of the multi-faceted nature of Gabriella’s work will be accompanied by recorded examples of music and with the short live performance of Addis Ababa your African Heart.
Tuesday 5 November
Imagining Liberty: Legal Geographies of Enslaved and Free Black People in Late Sixteenth-Century Sevilla
17:30 – 19:00
Online (via Zoom) / Room 243, Senate House
Register register via SAS website
This talk is based on a chapter in Chloe Ireton’s forthcoming book, Slavery and Freedom in Black Thought in the Early Spanish Atlantic (Cambridge University Press, 2024), which explores a history of ideas and hopes about freedom in the early Spanish Atlantic through the lives and affairs of enslaved and liberated Black people who lived in a central parish of late-sixteenth-century Sevilla. The talk traces varied conversations and fractured memories about paths to liberation from slavery among free, enslaved, and liberated Black populations in Sevilla and the existence of mutual aid practices that sometimes spanned vast distances across the Atlantic world.
Events from our Federation Members
During the month of October, the University of London’s federation members have organised a range of events on Black history and culture as well as issues related to the Black community. Please see a non-exhaustive list of the events from the Federation below:
11 October 2024 18:00 - 20:30
Image, Music, Power: Julian Henriques and Parminder Vir's Work in Film and Television Event 1
Join a three-part talk series on the film and television works of writer and director Julian Henriques and producer Parminder Vir. See screenings of We the Ragamuffin (1992), Babymother (1998) and Word, Sound, Power (2020), with an introduction and discussion with Henriques and Vir.
18 October 2024 18:00 - 20:30
Image, Music, Power: Julian Henriques and Parminder Vir's Work in Film and Television Event 2
Join a three-part talk series on the film and television works of writer and director Julian Henriques and producer Parminder Vir. See screenings of Rouch in Reverse (1995) and Algeria: Women at War (1992), with introductions by the film’s respective directors, Manthia Diawara and Parminder Vir.
25 October 2024 18:00 - 21:00
Image, Music, Power: Julian Henriques and Parminder Vir's Work in Film and Television Event 3
Join a three-part talk series on the film and television works of writer and director Julian Henriques and producer Parminder Vir. See screenings of Derek Walcott: Poet of the Island (1993) and Denzil’s Dance (2019). This event focusses on art and literature emanating from the Caribbean and features two films directed by Julian Henriques.
23 September 2024 - 20 November 2024
Goldsmiths CCA presents a solo exhibition by Sammy Baloji (b.1978, Lubumbashi). Comprising two new commissions and important recent works, all of which will be on display in the UK for the first time, this major exhibition presents interconnected strands of Baloji’s artistic research on climate, tropical architecture, Belgian Art Nouveau, and extraction from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
9 October 2024 18:00 - 20:30
Race Equality Network 'Reclaiming Narratives': Black History Month 2024
The King's Race Equality Network will be holding a two part event to celebrate and explore this year's Black History Month theme Reclaiming Narratives. Part 1 of the event will look at the role of King's College London in developing colonial education and the work being undertaken at KCL Libraries & Collections to decolonise collections and at King’s broadly on decolonial education. Part 2 will showcase the work of Black Academics and PGR students at King's on what theme of reclaiming narratives looks like for them in their work.
16 October 2024 13:10 - 14:00
Wednesday College Chapel Service at the Strand - Black History Month
This College Chapel service celebrates Black History Month with a special guest preacher, Prof Anthony Reddie (Professor of Black Theology; Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture). All are welcome.
23 October 2024 13:10 - 14:00
Wednesday College Chapel Service at the Strand - Black History Month
This College Chapel service celebrates Black History Month with a music focus. There will be no sermon in this service but it will instead offer an opportunity to focus on the music of the Black Atlantic. All are welcome.
London School of Economics (LSE)
16 October 2024 18:30 - 20:00
Antiblackness and global health: thinking epidemic responses in the colonial wake
Join the Department of International Development for the book launch of Lioba Hirsch's book ‘Antiblackness and Global Health. A response to Ebola in the Colonial Wake’. The book will provide a starting point for Lioba and Myfanwy James to discuss the persistent coloniality of global health interventions on the African continent, the racial and racist entanglements of humanitarian responses to medical emergencies and the methodological, intellectual and practical possibilities to foreground postcolonial voices in this debate.
30 October 2024 18:30 – 20:00
Reconceptualising African migrations towards decolonial futures
Drawing on the now extensive critique of the hegemony of coloniality/Euro-American modernity in the production of international migration/refugee regimes and policies, the Lecture discusses how global policy making contributes to the dehumanisation, protracted displacement, enslavement, and deaths of Africans who move, and asks why should African mobility be a problem at home and abroad and what are the alternatives for decolonial/rehumanising futures.
9 October 2024 17:00 - 19:00
Liberated Africans and the Legal Order of the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
Join Jake Subryan Richards from London School of Economics for a history seminar on illegal transoceanic slave trafficking in the 19th century, where maritime patrols rescued enslaved captives, and courts decided their fates. Learn about the complex paths of ‘liberated Africans’, and how their experiences shed light on the protracted abolition of slavery and its lingering effects.
24 October 2024 19:00 - 21:00
Camden Black Radicals: Race, class, abolition and social reform
SOAS Professor Olivette Otele will deliver the keynote Camden Black Radicals lecture for Camden Council's Black History Season, focusing on early activism, social reform and abolition.
Afterwards, Professor Otele will be joined for an ‘in conversation’ with Charmaine Simpson (CEO Black History Studies) and Sandra Shakespeare (Founder of the Black British Museum Project). The event will be chaired by Athian Akec (social activist and author).
30 October 2024 17:00 - 19:00
Eve Hayes De Kalaf from the Institute of Historical Research will lead a History Seminar on the ‘Windrush scandal’ and the topic of statelessness.
Drawing upon extensive oral history recordings conducted as part of the project ‘The Windrush Scandal in a Transnational and Commonwealth Context’, this paper argues that, far from a uniquely British anomaly, the origins of the scandal provide statelessness scholars with a much-needed historical insight into the distinct ways in which Global North countries have strategically prevented persons who see themselves as citizens from full enjoyment of these rights.
St George's University of London
11 October 2024 15:45 - 17:45
Clive Myrie will be visiting the City St George’s, University of London Tooting campus to engage with an audience in person to discuss his book Everything is Everything, which is this year's Big Read text. There will also be a book signing and drinks reception at the library breakout space following, where you can mingle with fellow attendees.
University College London (UCL)
10 October 2024 17:00 – 18:30
Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the aftermath of Empire
Join UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose in conversation with Dr Kojo Koram, Reader in Law at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Dr Koram’s book, Uncommon Wealth, is the little known and shocking history of how Britain treated its former non-white colonies after the end of empire. It is the story of how an interconnected group of British capitalists enabled horrific inequality across the globe, profiting in colonial Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. However, the greed unleashed in this era would boomerang, now leaving many ordinary Britons wondering where their own prosperity has gone.
14 October 2024 17:00 – 18:30
Caribbean Journeys and Colonial Legacies: A Reading of Ocean Stirrings by Merle Collins
The UCL Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery is delighted to announce the details of the third instalment in its Speaker Series honouring one of UCL History’s most distinguished graduates, the Guyanese historian Elsa V. Goveia.
In collaboration with the UCL Institute of the Americas and Peepal Tree Press, the special guest speaker is distinguished writer Merle Collins, who will present “Caribbean Journeys and Colonial Legacies: A Reading of Ocean Stirrings, a tribute to Louise Little, Grenadian mother of Malcolm X and his siblings.”
This page was last updated on 11 October 2024
