RESEARCH PROJECTS
Grassroots Struggles, Global Visions: British Black Power, 1964-1985
This multi-year Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project explores the historical development and significance of Black Power in Britain. It is led by Dr Kerry Pimblott (University of Manchester) and Professor Kennetta Hammond Perry (Northwestern University) and the research team includes Dr Saskia Papadakis (Royal Holloway, University of London), Zosia Alarr (Northwestern University), Jake Gandy (University of Manchester) and Destinie Reynolds (University of Manchester).
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While accounts of British Black Power tend to adopt a metropolitan focus, this project shifts the lens beyond London to under-examined sites of struggle in the North West and East Midlands. Specifically, the project examines how consideration of historical place and region informed the distinct character and formation of local Black Power struggles as well as the networks that connected them to each other and their counterparts in the nation’s capital and around the globe.
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In telling these stories, the project adopts a community-engaged methodology that builds upon the strengths and resources already present within communities engaging people with lived experience as important knowledge-bearers and partners in the research process. We are currently working with several community-based heritage initiatives to better document, preserve, and (re)present these histories through memory workshops, conducting oral histories, and creating new manuscript and photographic collections.
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Our North West Regional Hub is currently partnering with the Radical Reading Room Collective to create new archival collections and oral histories on the Viraj Mendis Defence Campaign and other Manchester-based anti-deportation campaigns. You can learn more about this collaboration in our blog post linked here. We also held a Memorial Meeting and Archive Launch in memory of Viraj at the Ascension Church Hulme on March 1, 2025 which you can learn more about in our blog post linked here.
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Our East Midlands Regional Hub is currently partnering with the African Caribbean Centre in Leicester to better document, preserve and (re)present the history of Black Power and its legacies in the region. You can learn more in our blog post linked here.
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The Research Team also hosted a symposium, Black Power at the Grassroots: Documenting, Preserving, and (Re)presenting Histories of Black Struggle in Britain, at the University of Manchester on January 31, 2025. A full report is posted here.