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Durham History Department
Student walking outside the Department of History

Department of History marks Black History Month 2023 with History Now! and RHS events

2 November 2023
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Two West Indian Merchant Seamen stand outside the 'West Indies House' hostel at 14-16 Lovaine Place, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, 1941. Behind them can be seen a poster advertising the hostel, its location and facilities. The poster also states that the name of the superintendent is Mr Larbi.

To mark Black History Month 2023, Dr Liam Liburd organised the History Now! event ‘Black History in the North East’, and took part in a Royal Historical Society (RHS) Roundtable ‘Black British History: Where Now, Where Next?’

On Thursday 26 October 2023 the History department hosted a session at the Great Town Hall in Durham City to mark Black History Month 2023.

History Now! BHM 2023: Black History in the North East was a discussion of academic research and public history projects on the North East's Black history to mark Black History Month 2023. This event was chaired by Dr Liam Liburd, Assistant Professor of Black British History and featured presentations and discussions from:

  • Busola Afolabi, the Director of Newcastle-based educational charity, Success4All. As part of their work engaging, empowering and motivating young people to succeed in education, Success4All have facilitated youth-led projects on Black history in their local area.
  • Terry Graham, Head of history at Heworth Grange School in Gateshead and the lead in Project North Star - a multi-faceted project looking at promoting Black history with schools and local communities and amplifying the North East's history in national conversations on this subject.
  • Joe Redmayne, a final year History PhD student at Newcastle University interested in global labour history. His thesis situates County Durham during the year 1919 transnationally and explores the global implications of the Empire on British society through regional working-class consciousness. He uses a multi-occupational approach and the category of whiteness to renew our understanding of class consciousness in an age of world empires.

A second event hosted by the Royal History Society (RHS) Black British History: Where Now, Where Next? took place on online, and featured a panel discussion between Hannah Elias (Goldsmiths), Kesewa John (Goldsmiths), and Liam Liburd (Durham) considering the current focus and state of Black British History in UK Higher Education, and beyond, and reflecting on how the subject will develop in the coming years. The panel, chaired by Bill Schwarz brought together three lecturers in Black British History, to provide their perspectives on current and future areas of research and the infrastructure available and needed to support the subject.