From Dr Liam J Liburd, Durham University

I’m writing as the new Public History Officer at Durham University’s Department of History to spread the news about our upcoming History Now! event to mark Black History Month. History Now! is a series of public talks organised between the History Department and the Gala Theatre in Durham. 

This year’s Black History Month event will be held in-person at the Gala Theatre on 12 October at 5:30pm, organised in cooperation with Durham’s BAME Network.

The event is a panel discussion reflecting on the theme of this year’s Black History Month: ‘Time for Change – Action Not Words’. Bringing together speakers from within higher education as well as historical researchers beyond academia, the speakers and our audience will consider (among other things) the present and future of Black history in Britain.

 One thing to note, this is a ticketed event. Tickets cost only £1 to cover the cost of room hire. 

 *PLEASE ALSO NOTE* In order to avoid the paying booking fee, rather than booking online or over the phone, it is best to either pay on the door on the evening itself or to pop into the Gala ahead of time and buy tickets in person from their box office. The Facebook event link can be found here and the Gala theatre event page here.

The panel will consist of the following speakers:

• Professor Heidi Safia Mirza is Emeritus Professor of Equality Studies in Education at UCL Institute of Education and Visiting Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmith’s College, and Social Policy at London School of Economics. She is a daughter of the Caribbean Windrush Generation and is internationally known for her pioneering intersectional academic research on race, gender and identity and championing the rights of Black, Muslim, and Asian women through educational reform. She is author of several best-selling books including Black British Feminism and Young Female and Black, which was voted in the top 40 most influential educational studies in Britain. Professor Mirza is a leading voice in the global debate on decolonisation and co-edited the flagship book, ‘Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy’.
• Dr Beverley Prevatt Goldstein has worked extensively in the fields of social work practice, social work education, community development and training and consultancy. She has led training on equalities in the major child care organisations in the North East, the majority of the North East universities and with foster carers and adopters nationally. She is an active researcher and her 28 publications include articles and chapters on black children with a white parent, black perspectives and social work education. Her most recent publications are African Lives in Northern England (2021) and ‘Searching for new perspectives on heritage: The Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans’ in Whose Heritage? Challenging Race and Identity in Stuart Hall’s Post-nation Britain (forthcoming, Routledge, 2023). She has been Acting Programme Director of the Diploma of Social Work at Durham University, Director of BECON (Black Minority Ethnic Community Organisations Network for the North East region) and Chair of North East of England African Community Association. She is a member of Culture Against Racism and Stand Up to Racism, North East.
• Chair: Dr Liam J. Liburd is the Assistant Professor of Black British History at Durham University. His research focuses broadly on the ongoing impact of the legacies of empire and decolonisation in modern Britain. His current research focuses on Black radical analyses of fascism and on the question of how historians might use these to transform our understanding of the relationship between British fascism and the British Empire, as well as, more broadly, of the politics of race in modern Britain. He is currently developing his doctoral thesis ‘The Eternal Imperialists: Empire, Race and Gender on the British Radical Right’ (University of Sheffield, 2019) into a book.

We’re hoping for a lively discussion involving the audience as well as the panellists, so please do come along and spread the word!