May Ayim was key to the Black German civil rights movement in the 1980s and 1990s. But how did her work across borders exemplify cosmopolitanism from below? Tiffany N. Florvil explores the life and networks of a visionary.
As repressive legislation to restrict protest is passed in India and Britain, how can we understand its historical roots and how can this inform activism today?
What can the radical tradition of costume & performance at Notting Hill Carnival tell us about a decolonised approach to the teaching of history? Ife Thompson on the People's War Carnival Band
How was the eighteenth-century pursuit of knowledge intertwined with enslavement and empire? Lucy Moynihan on the history of literary institutions in the British colonial world.
The term 'racial capitalism' has been widely used by activists and historians. Catherine Hall turns to the 18th century entanglements between Jamaica and England to reflect on the shifting forms of racial capitalism across generations.
Child marriage is often conceived of as embedded in the past, but there is little attention to its historical context. Rhian Keyse explores how this obscures the shifting dynamics and social meanings of such practices.
Who were Alexander Hamilton’s blood relatives? What did they value and how did this influence the founding father’s own attitudes toward slavery? Richard Addington explores.
On 13th August 1977, a National Front march in Lewisham was halted by activists. Reflecting in 2022, Alfie Hancox considers what does the Battle of Lewisham might reveal about anti-fascist organising.
What can The London Women's Handbook reveal about the Greater London Council and radical feminist organising? Lucy Brownson explores the 1986 Handbook which captures a turning point in British political and social life.
Exploring the historical antecedents to present day nationality and immigration restrictions in the UK, Sara Cosemans brings together burgeoning neoliberal ideology and nostalgia for empire in the 1960s and 1970s to explain how race and…
Can medical institutions participate in colonial violence? Allison McKibban argues the involuntary sterilization of tens of thousands of Native American women in the 1970s must be rehistoricised as part of the U.S. government’s broader…
This new Virtual Special Issue of History Workshop Journal brings together over 30 years of research, to reflect on the meaning and significance of Black British history.
In the early morning on Sunday 18 January 1981, a fire broke out at 439 New Cross Road in the London Borough of Lewisham. The fire was almost certainly the result of a deliberate racist attack. Thirteen young Black Britons lost their lives…
As Donald Trump is acquitted for inciting the Capitol riots, Micah Jones asks what justice looks like in a legal system that privileges whiteness. To understand the roots of the spectacular events at the Capitol, she argues, we must turn…
How do we build healing history in the wake of a massacre? Hannibal B. Johnson writes about black achievement in Tulsa, Oklahoma and celebrates the architects of the “Greenwood District” who resisted white supremacy and racial…
How do we name empire and genocide, the structural violence embedded in our built environments, and why does it matter? Melanie J. Newton unpicks the contested legacy of Henry Dundas, eighteenth-century imperialist & "Uncrowned King of…
After the recent release of the Policy Exchange's controversial report on 'Academic freedom in the UK', Evan Smith argues that the 'crisis' over free speech is nothing new. Debates over 'no platforming' have a much longer history than is…
A culture of hyper-vigilantism and the conflation of skin colour with criminality did not begin with the abolition of slavery or with the current age of mass incarceration. Joseph Yannielli and Christine Whyte explore its 18th-century…
What is friendship worth, how might it be valued, and could it count in the context of immigration control? How might valuing friendship contribute to a wider critique of ‘the family’? And how might an appreciation of intimacy,…
Jennifer Davis warns that the official sympathy and acknowledgment afforded to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, was not extended in London's recent past, and may not inform the future of policing policy in the UK.
Madge Dresser argues that statues of slave traders, such as Edward Colston, often served complex local and civic objectives, which were inextricable from historical processes which silenced the voices of enslaved Africans.
The last fortnight has seen many statues associated with racism and colonialism torn down. When were they originally put up, and what can that tell about the history of whiteness and empire? Peter Hill explores.
How has the whitewashing of race science and eugenics shaped racist ideologies in the present-day political mainstream? Anne Hanley argues that genetic determinism continues to shape deep-seated assumptions about ‘natural’ racial and…
Meleisa Ono-George introduces her new feature for HWO on community-engaged histories of Black Britain - "Power in the Telling" - which explores how history is not just about what is known, but also about the process and politics of its…
