Black History Conversations

Black History Conversations — Achievements to Date

Black History Conversations has developed as an international, community-based forum for exploring Black history, heritage and contemporary experience through conversation.

A particular strength has been its ability to bring together people who might not normally meet in the same historical or cultural space. Participants and speakers have joined from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, alongside people from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, Nigeria and other African countries, and a range of European countries.

This has enabled Black History Conversations to look beyond individual national histories and explore the connections created by Africa, the Caribbean, Britain and Europe through slavery, colonialism, resistance, emancipation, migration and the continuing movement of people, ideas and cultures.

What we have achieved

• Built an international network of participants, speakers, historians, educators, community activists, heritage practitioners and people interested in discovering and sharing Black history.
• Brought together people from all four nations of the UK while also creating direct conversations with participants in the Caribbean, Africa and continental Europe.
• Created a space in which community knowledge and lived experience sit alongside academic and archival research.
• Enabled people in Britain to hear Black history directly from Caribbean and African voices, rather than seeing those histories solely through British institutions and archives.
• Explored slavery and colonialism while deliberately extending the conversation to resistance, emancipation, independence, migration, Windrush, identity, land, education, culture and community development.
• Encouraged participants to explore the connections between local history and global history — showing, for example, how the history of a particular family, estate, port, town or community can lead into a much wider international story.
• Developed relationships between people and organisations that have continued beyond individual Black History Conversations, leading to further research, heritage activity, exchanges and collaborative projects.
• Demonstrated the value of Zoom as a means of international community engagement: people separated by thousands of miles have been able to meet, question one another and contribute to the same conversation.
• Created a forum where people do not have to be professional historians. Researchers, academics, community historians, students, elders and people bringing family or community memories can all contribute.

The distinctive character of Black History Conversations

We think this is particularly important to retain.

We do not want Black History Conversations to become simply another programme of online history lectures, as its strength is the conversation itself: bringing together different countries, generations, disciplines and experiences and asking:

So, what does this history look like from where you are?

The same historical subject can look very different when discussed simultaneously from Jamaica, Nigeria, Wales, England, Scotland, Ireland or elsewhere in Europe. Those different perspectives are part of the history rather than a complication to it.

So we want to move forward in line with these ideas:

BLACK HISTORY CONVERSATIONS 2026–27
Connecting Africa, the Caribbean, Britain and Europe

History • Heritage • Migration • Resistance • Community • Shared Futures

The programme will remain an hour or so, on a Friday, with perhaps two or three short contributions from different places, followed by the main conversation and updates on what is happening in the world of Black History and Reparations.

For example, a session on Emancipation might deliberately bring together perspectives from Jamaica, another Caribbean island, Britain and West Africa.

A session on Windrush and migration could compare experiences in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland while bringing Caribbean participants into the conversation.

A session on Slavery and its legacies could look at how the subject is understood and presented in a Caribbean community, an African country, a British historic property and a European port or city.

And the developing Bangor–Clarendon/Pennant research becomes a case study within this much bigger international conversation — connecting one part of Wales with Jamaica and ultimately with the wider Atlantic world.

We are planning a phased relaunch with a session on Fri 11th Sept to discuss programme, mailing and website

Then: 

BLACK HISTORY CONVERSATIONS RETURNS

From Africa to the Caribbean, Britain and Europe

Reconnecting our international Black History community

What have we learned?
What are we discovering now?
Whose histories still need to be heard?
And where should Black History Conversations go next?

We will invite perhaps six previous contributors from different countries, each speaking for just five minutes to update us and share about one thing they believe Black History Conversations should explore next.

This makes the project distinctive: not one organisation broadcasting history to an audience, but people in different parts of the world discovering, questioning and interpreting interconnected histories together.