The History of Black Students at Durham - walking exhibition and tour launch

This event forms part of a wider series of projects on the absent presence of Durham’s Black history and is the collaborative outcome of work by Nayanika Mookherjee, Liam Liburd, Jonathan Bush, Avarna Ojha, Bex Islam, Keira Forde, Naomi Lawal, Angelina Johnson and Ferdinand Ameyaw amongst others.

There will be photos and documents displayed as posters, a website with the walking tour to engage with as well as short talks/reflections from current students and staff. Further details to follow nearer the time.

The history of Black students at Durham


Durham has educated Black students in small but significant numbers going right back to the 19^thcentury. The histories and experiences of these students have been remembered, forgotten and remembered again. These are stories that are both ordinary and exceptional. There are the normal experiences of being a student – attending debates and politics, making friends, eating fish and chips, playing sport, attending classes. And there are stories that are exceptional, exceptional achievements, especially against the backdrop of a white, colonial and racist society, this also included the university too. Exceptional too in that their presence was not always comfortable or accepted in straightforward ways.

These students lives force us to ask questions of the history of the university as a colonial and post-colonial actor. These connections throw out a multiplicity of directions and connections. Durham was the ‘sponsoring’ institution for Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone and Codrington College, Barbados setting exams and curricula for the colleges, small numbers of students came from there to Durham to ‘complete’ their studies. The university trained white and small numbers of Black priests to work in the Anglican church across the colonies. The creation of an ‘Oriental’ studies department fostered connections to the Middle East, British oil companies and later middle eastern ruling elites. Student solidarity with South Africa and later Palestine led to international scholarships and highlighted the role played by critical and left-wing students and staff in fostering anti-colonial politics. These stories need to be read through multiple lenses with class and gender equally important. These are stories which range from Ethiopian military commanders to Nigerian nationalists, pioneering woman musicians to bankers. There is not a single narrative here but many.

Black students have been an ordinary part of Durham’s history even though they have been marginalised, both in official memory/celebration, and, quite possibly, in their time here. Durham’s dominant culture as an institution of the established white, British middle-class/elite tells only part of the story. It’s important to challenge this dominant presence in how Durham has been experienced, understood and narrated. Join us to explore the extra/ordinary histories of Black students at Durham.