Black History Month

Welcome to Black History Month 2025

We are excited to welcome you to this year’s Black History Month campaign! This is a wonderful opportunity to engage with Black culture and heritage, learn about Black history from various perspectives, and celebrate Black pride and culture through our events, articles, and spotlights! We encourage all students, regardless of cultural background, to get involved and immerse themselves in the rich and diverse history of Black cultural heritage throughout this campaign. Join us for a month filled with exciting events!

This year, we’re highlighting the theme of Black History Month in the United Kingdom: "Standing Firm in Power and Pride." As noted by Black History Month UK, it emphasizes the significance of Black heritage individuals' influence in the UK: “Our History is Deep. Our Culture is Rich. Our Pride is Unshakable.” This theme honours centuries of Black presence & culture in Britain, from early settlers to educators and writers, and reminds us that "Black history is British history". www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk

You are invited to explore this theme through movie screenings and by celebrating the rich African and Caribbean cultures in events such as our cultural showcase, workshops, and more. We are excited to display and celebrate the diversity of our Black students, so be sure to check out the full program as well as our Culture List, where you can find a curated selection of books, films, TV series, music, and more! We can’t wait to see you there!

Najah, Black History Month Community Organiser

Upcoming events

LGBTea & Coffee
8th October 2:45pm - 4:45pm
Matt Spencer Room (1st Floor) - QMSU Building
First LGBTea & Coffee event of the year! Meet up for free drinks and snacks, chat with others and play some board & card games.
Alcohol Free | Clubs & Societies | Self-care & Wellbeing | Fun stuff | Free | Black History Month
Black History Month: Movie Night
10th October 4:30pm - 6:30pm
Brancroft 2.40
Fun stuff | Free | Black History Month
see all events


Black Societies Spotlight

Black History Month is the perfect time to engage with some of our Black student groups and their events. There are a range to choose from and they’d love to welcome you to their activities!

We have an African and Caribbean Society (ACS and BL ACS) on each of our Mile End and Whitechapel campuses where you can engage with black culture and make new friends. If you're interested in learning more about particular cultures, why not check out Somali Society or North African Society? If you're a black girl and you love to read, then get in touch with Women of Colour Book Club!

QM ACS - @qmulacs
BL ACS - @bartsacs
Decolonise - @decoloniseqmul
Somali Society - @qmsomsoc
North African Society - @qmnasoc
Women of Colour Book Club - @QMULWOCBC
Diaspora Speaks - @diasporaspeaks

Culture Spotlight
Poor by Caleb Femi

In Poor, Queen Mary alumnus Caleb Femi combines poetry and original photography to explore the trials, tribulations, dreams and joys of young Black boys in twenty-first century Peckham.

He contemplates the ways in which they are informed by the built environment of concrete walls and gentrifying neighbourhoods that form their stage, writes a coded, near-mythical history of the personalities and sagas of his South London youth, and pays tribute to the rappers and artists who spoke to their lives.

BHM 2025 Culture List

Click the drop-downs below to see our Culture List, a selection of books, film, TV, podcasts and more recommended by our Black History Month Organising Committee.

Fiction
  • Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
  • James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk
  • Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half
  • Candice Carty-Williams, Queenie
  • Alice Walker, The Color Purple
  • Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other
  • Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
  • Yaa Gyasi, Home Going
  • Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water
  • Ayobami Adebayo, Stay with Me
  • Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age
  • Lola Shoneyin, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives

Non-fiction
  • Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race
  • David Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten History
  • Akala, Natives
  • Malcolm X (Alex Haley), The Autobiography of Malcolm X
  • Afua Hirsch, Brit(ish)
  • Trevor Noah, Born a Crime
  • Candice Brathwaite, I Am Not Your Baby Mother
  • Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist
  • Angela Davis, Race and Class
  • C.L.R James, The Black Jacobins
  • Chidera Eggerue, What a Time to be Alone
  • Gal-dem “I will not be Erased”
  • Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism
  • Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

Poetry
  • Warsan Shire, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
  • Kamau Brathwaite, Born to Slow Horses
  • Sophie Thakur, Somebody Give this Heart a Pen
  • Rachel Long, My Darling from The Lions
  • Maya Angelou, And Still I Rise
  • Alexandra Elle, Neon Soul

Plays
  • Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
  • Inua Ellams, Barber Shop Chronicles
  • Zadie Smtih, The Wife of Willesden
  • Lola Shoneyin, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives
  • Benedict Lombe, Shifters
  • Queen Sugar (Amazon Prime)
  • Black-ish (Amazon Prime)
  • I May Destroy You (BBC)
  • Noughts and Crosses (BBC)
  • Atlanta (BBC)
  • Pose (BBC/Netflix)
  • When They See Us (Netflix)
  • Dear White People (Netflix)
  • They Gotta Have Us (Netflix)
  • Blood and Water (Netflix)
  • She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix)
  • 13th (Netflix)
  • Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J Walker (Netflix)
  • Greenleaf (Netflix)
  • American Son (Netflix)
  • Insecure (Sky)
  • Becoming (Netflix)
  • Lizzo Watch out for the Big Grrrls (Amazon Prime)
  • Abbott Elementary (Disney+)
  • Black Twitter: A People’s History (Disney+)
  • Washington Black (Disney+)
  • Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)
  • One Night in Miami (2021)
  • Black is King (2020)
  • Da 5 Bloods (2020)
  • All Day and a Night (2020)
  • Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
  • Selah and the Spades (2019)
  • Just Mercy (2019)
  • Queen and Slim (2019)
  • Sorry to Bother You (2018)
  • Black Panther (2018)
  • If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
  • Farming (2018)
  • BlacKkKlansman (2018)
  • Sorry to Bother You (2018)
  • Hidden Figures (2016)
  • The Wedding Party (2016)
  • Moonlight (2016)
  • Fences (2016)
  • Girlhood (2014)
  • Belle (2013)
  • Fruitvale Station (2013)
  • Freedom Writers (2007)
  • Bullet Boy (2004)
  • City of God (2002)
  • Love and Basketball (2000)
  • Burning and Illusion (1981)
  • Do The Right Thing (1989)
  • Sister Act (1992), Sister Act (1993)
  • Sarah’s Oil (2025)
  • The History Hotline
  • Say Your Mind
  • Receipts Podcast
  • Black Gals Livin’
  • Under the Arch
  • The Black Curriculum
  • The Michelle Obama Podcast
  • Growing Up with gal-dem
  • 90s Baby Show
  • The Uncut Podcast
  • The Diary Of A CEO
  • Patricia Bright
  • Jackie Aina
  • Nathan Zed
  • LA Beautyologist
  • Tabitha Brown
  • Chunkz
  • Golloria (tiktok)
  • Blackmenaces (tiktok)
  • Femi Sorry (twitter, tiktok, youtube)
  • Jaxajueny (tiktok)
  • Claudia Jones, ‘the mother of the carnival’
  • Bell hooks, American Author and social activist
  • Kimberle Crenshaw, coined the term intersectionality
  • Lewis Hamiliton, British Formula one driver winning 7 world championships
  • Malorie Blackman, First black Children’s Laureate
  • Justin Fashanum, the first openly gay footballer, and the first black footballer to command a £1 million transfer fee
  • Dianne Abbott, the first black woman to be elected to Parliament, and currently the longest-serving black MP in the House of Commons

From the Archives: Princess Tejumade Alakija

Princess Tejumade Alakija, daughter of the monarch of the Ife tribe of Nigeria (then known as West Africa) attended Westfield College (present day Queen Mary University of London) from 1947-1950.

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Black History Month - Meet Aliya and Henriana

Aliya and Henriana both sat on this year’s Black History Month Organising Committee. Hear what they have to say about their involvement in the committee, what Black History Month means to them and more!

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Mapping Black History in London

Black history is deeply entrenched in our culture but often, Black history and Black figures are unfairly kept to the margins of history. Despite this, there have been countless Black individuals who have shaped London and the wider United Kingdom, to make it what it is today.

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Contact your VP Liberation, International & Postgraduates

Hassam

Get Involved

If you've got a creative event idea or you're just itching to be part of the organising committee, we're all ears. Just fill in the sign-up form below and we'll be in touch!

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