Category: Black History Month

Claudia Jones, a journalist and political activist from Trinidad & Tobago, was born in 1915. She relocated to Harlem, New York, with her parents and three sisters when she was nine years old.

John Charles Bryan Barnes MBE was born in Jamaica in 1963 to a Trinidad and Tobago military officer and a Jamaican mother.

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah grew up in Handsworth, Birmingham

Karen Tracey Blackett OBE was raised in Reading and attended the University of Portsmouth as the daughter of first-generation Barbadian immigrants

Dame Sharon Michele White DBE is a British businesswoman. She is the current Chair of the John Lewis Partnership and previously held a variety of roles in the Civil Service.

William Manuel Morris, Baron Morris of Handsworth, OJ, DL, widely known as Bill Morris. Is the first black leader of a major British trade union.

Mary Jane Seacole was born in 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica, to James Grant (a Scottish Lieutenant in the British Army and a member of Jamaica’s Free Black Community) and Mrs Grant (a healer who used traditional Caribbean and African herbal medicines).

Sir Steve Rodney McQueen KBE is a British filmmaker and video artist.

Stuart Henry McPhail Hall was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1932 to parents who were of mixed African, Indian, and British ancestry.

Steel pulse are a British reggae roots band from Handsworth, Birmingham

Bassey is widely regarded as one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain.

Kadeena Cox, MBE, is a British parasport athlete and TV personality.

Phyllis Akua Opoku-Gyimah, also known as ‘Lady Phyll’, is a British political activist and the co-founder of the UK Black Pride.

Rachel Elizabeth “Betty” Campbell MBE was Wales’ first black headteacher and a well-known community activist.

Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson is an actress, screenwriter, director, producer, and singer from East London.

Idrissa “Idris” Akuna Elba OBE is an actor, director, producer, and musician from Britain.

Olive Morris – Graduate, activist, founder and published writer.

Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr., professionally known as ‘Stormzy’, is a British rapper from Croydon, London

David Thomas Pitt, Baron Pitt of Hampstead, was a British Labour Party politician and political activist. He was the longest-serving Black MP in the House of Commons.