Black History Month at NTU

Black History Month (BHM) is an annual celebration of the successes and achievements of the Black community and a time for recognising their impact in society.

Our NTU community is proud to support Black History Month 2021 by hosting commemorative events and activities that are open to our students and staff. We are also pleased to share our educational resources with staff and students as part of our commitment to becoming an anti-racist institution.

We recognise that the Black history experience is not limited to one month each year, and have made a commitment to work year-round to host a diverse programme of events and resources to help create a more equal future for everyone.

As a university and alongside the Nottingham Trent Students’ Union (NTSU), we are firmly committed to sustaining a highly effective learning and working environment characterised by fairness, equality of opportunity and the valuing of diversity.

Head to the NTSU website to explore their 'Black Futures' events this month. You can also discover black-owned businesses to support and vote for the most inspiring scientist in the 'Diversity in Science' awards.

Our African Caribbean Society, ACS, aims to educate and unite diverse students from NTU and the University of Nottingham, and The New Black Society strives to bring together a community of like-minded people with a progressive mentality to succeed in the face of adversity. The NTSU has also conducted a research project on the experience of Black students at NTU, which resulted in a position paper on the black attainment gap.

Our NTU community of Researchers aim to break down barriers and tackle society’s problems. Meet some of our researchers who are working to celebrate, give agency and create a legacy for the Black community in Nottingham.

Panya Banjoko – Panya is a PhD researcher in NTU’s School of Arts and Humanities. Her thesis is around Politics in Poetry and the Role of African Caribbean Writers and Networks in the 1970s and 1980s. Panya is a key figure in Nottingham’s arts and culture community, establishing Nottingham Black Archive, which aims to collect, research and preserve Black history and heritage in the region and is the first organisation of its kind in the city.

Patricia Francis – Patricia is a PhD Researcher working across our School of Art & Design and our School of Arts and Humanities. Her research is a creative-critical analysis of the muting of dissenting women’s voices focusing on the women involved in the 1984-1985 miners’ strike and those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Dr Dung Jidong - is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology. His research areas include mental health issues among BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) people, African cultural perspectives on mental health issues and Black & cultural psychology. His recent study has highlighted the significant gaps in support available to African and Caribbean communities struggling with their mental health in the UK, and will be offering a pilot programme of parenting workshops for these groups.

Sharon Monteith is Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Cultural History in NTU’s School of Arts and Humanities. Professor Monteith's interdisciplinary research focuses on literary activism, African American and Black British print and visual culture, the American South, the US civil rights movement and massive resistance to civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. It also focuses on African American and Black British history, American literature and culture, feature film, documentary and art cinema, journalism and media cultures. Sharon’s most recent book is SNCC’s Stories: The African American Freedom Movement in the Civil Rights South (University of Georgia Press, 2020). Her current project is The Civil Rights Movement: A Literary History.