CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2024 IN FLEET STREET QUARTER
ALL THE EVENTS ACROSS THE QUARTER THIS OCTOBER
1 October - 31 October 2024 • Across the Fleet Street Quarter
Portrait possibly of Francis Barber, attributed either to James Northcote or Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1770s
We've compiled a number of events and activities happening across the Fleet Street Quarter this October for Black History Month 2024. Learn more about the black history of the Fleet Street Quarter, hear from speakers on topics relating to language and law, and explore archives relating to black history and activism in the UK and internationally.
If you're hosting, or know of any events for Black History Month going on in the Quarter please do let us know and we will add to this list.
FLEET STREET QUARTER BLACK HISTORY TOUR
16 OCTOBER 2024 • 12:00PM – 1:00PM • MEET OUTSIDE M&S LUDGATE CIRCUS • BOOK HERE
Join Angela Morgan on a lunchtime tour of the Fleet Street Quarter where she will explore and uncover the rich and varied black history of this famously unique western side of the City of London.
Angela will pull a particular focus to ‘Faithful Frank’, better known as Francis Barber, who was the black manservant to Dr Samuel Johnson, the creator of perhaps the most influential versions of the English Dictionary.
His life story has been documented using a compilation of comments by friends of Dr Johnson and their observations. Not all were favourable but mixed in with other stories of the black presence in the 18th century, we can get a sense of what his and other black lives were like during this time in London.
We're offering this tour as part of Black History Month 2024, but it's important to recognise that black history is not limited to one month. It's a vital part of British history, influencing our culture, politics, language and society. This tour helps to honour and celebrate that legacy.
Our FSQ Black History Tour costs just £3 (plus Eventbrite fees) and all money (minus fees) will go to our tour guide Angela's chosen charity Black Cultural Archives, whose mission is to collect, preserve and celebrate the histories of people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK.
BHM AT ELITHA'S FINE ART & COLLECTABLES GALLERY
8 - 31 OCTOBER • (OPENING) 12:30PM - 8:30PM • ELITHA'S FINE ART & COLLECTABLES • FIND OUT MORE
Visit Elitha’s Gallery, Holborn Circus, for their month-long Black History Month exhibition programme, showcasing six different black artists throughout October. The gallery will also be hosting an opening on Tuesday 8 October, 12:30pm – 8:30pm, celebrating art, culture and community. You’ll have the chance to immerse yourself in live music, enjoy authentic African cuisine and explore the artists’ works.
Elitha’s Fine Art & Collectables is a renowned art gallery known for collecting and showcasing modern and contemporary Art, promoting discourse on modern and contemporary Art, art criticism, and contemporary art history.
BLACK BRITISH ENGLISH: A TALK BY IFE THOMPSON
18 OCTOBER 2024 • 6:30PM - 7:30PM • SHOE LANE LIBRARY • FIND OUT MORE AND BOOK HERE
Join Ifẹ Thompson at Shoe Lane Library for a talk exploring the importance of Black British English (BBE) and its rich landscape of as a language, tracing its journey through various cultural avenues –
from the creative expressions found in arts, rap music, and social media to its portrayal in television and literature, and its influence in societal realms such as courtrooms and schools.
Ifẹ Thompson is a barrister at Garden Court Chambers, whose unwavering commitment to racial justice earned her a nomination for the Newcomer Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year 2023. She is also the founder of Black Learning Achievement and Mental Health, a non-profit dedicated to enhancing black cultural education and mental health within the Black British community.
INNER TEMPLE RACIAL EQUALITY SOCIETY: SETTING THE NARRATIVE, A PANEL DISCUSSION
18 OCTOBER 2024 • 6:30PM - 8:30PM • THE HONORABLE SOCIETY OF THE INNER TEMPLE • FIND OUT MORE AND BOOK HERE
The Inner Temple Racial Equality Society are hosting a panel event for Black History Month featuring speakers from different backgrounds, but all connected to law in some way. You’ll be able to hear from the speakers about their journeys and what they do but we will also learn a thing or two from Black History.
Panel:
Jason Jackson – Deputy Mayor of Islington Borough
Elpha LeCointe – Deputy District Judge
Alison Stuart – Head of the Legal Department and Monitoring Officer Islington Council
Natasha Shotunde – Founder of Black Barristers' Network & Barrister at Garden Court Chambers
Nathan Alleyne-Brown – Barrister at No 5 Barristers Chambers
Cllr Valerie Bossman-Quarshie – Historian, activist and councillor
DR JOHNSON'S HOUSE TOURS
THROUGHOUT OCTOBER • TUESDAY - FRIDAY, 11AM - 5PM • DR JOHNSON'S HOUSE • FIND OUT MORE
You can also visit Dr Johnson’s House throughout October and discover the house’s links to black history in London. Dr Johnson’s House is understood to be the only property still standing in the City of London that can be identified as the home of a formerly enslaved person who became an independent, valued member of a household in the 18th century.
Visit the museum for a tour and ask to find out more about Francis Barber and his life in and around the Fleet Street area.
Barber would go on to study as an apothecary, join the navy of his own volition, and become the first recorded black schoolmaster in England. Controversially for the time, Johnson named Barber as his heir. Johnson was against slavery before Barber joined his household, and it is believed that Barber's presence in Johnson’s life confirmed his beliefs and influenced his later anti-slavery writings.
VISIT MAYDAY ROOMS ARCHIVE OF BLACK HISTORY
THROUGHOUT OCTOBER • WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY, 11AM - 6PM • MAYDAY ROOMS • FIND OUT MORE
MayDay Rooms, based on Fleet Street, is an archive, resource space and safe haven for social movements, experimental and marginal cultures and their histories. Their collection contains an archive of historical material linked to social struggles, resistance campaigns, experimental culture, and the expression of marginalised and oppressed groups.
Amongst these collections, you can explore materials relating to black history including anti-Apartheid newspapers, ephemera, which range from anti-racist activism and black politics in the 1970s, to film and radical arts journals. Also available to view is a collection of material relating to Black Struggle in the UK and a full set of newsletters, correspondence, supporting documents, press-clippings from many African countries and a series of articles by writers who contributed to the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa project.