Durham Hosts Week of Events Honouring Black History and Reparative Justice

1. Monday, 20 October: Absence-Presence of Durham’s Black History Walking Tour Amidst Our Working Lives

(with audio recordings, please bring headphones) in Durham Cathedral and City Centre (12.30-2.30);

tea/coffee (2.30-3.00, ante, Bishop’s Dining Room, University College) and panel discussion at Bishop’s Dining Room, University College (3.00-5.00)

Please sign up (further details will be sent on the morning of 20/10) via the link for details and to register for this event:

https://festivalofsocialscience.com/events/absence-presence-of-durhams-black-history-walking-tour-amidst-our-working-lives/

Panellists:

• • Dr Nicole Phillip BHM keynote speaker, University of Grenada, Head of the Reparation Commission
  • Dr Nicola Frith French, Edinburgh University
  • Fr Richard Springer Rector, St George-in-the-East, London
  • Tom Trevelyan Descendant of the Trevelyan Family who historically profited from British transatlantic slavery and want to make amends through Heirs of Slavery

And Durham colleagues:

• • Dr Shaid Mahmood Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)
  • Prof. Martin Evans Executive Dean, Social Sciences
  • Dr Kulwinder Maude BAME Co-Chair & Assistant Professor in the School of Education
  • Dr Liam Liburd Assistant Professor (Black British History) in the Department of History
  • The Rev'd Canon Gavin Wort Lead Chaplain
  • Christopher Jones AKA Dr. X Assistant Principal, St Aidan's College
  • Dr Sol Gamsu Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology
  • Ms Avarna Ojha (History, RA for the project); Ms Judith Akoto, Mr Alex Bovaird, Ms Hannah Larkin (Anthropology, Decolonial Interns).
  • Chaired by Prof. Nayanika Mookherjee (Anthropology, IAS)

Dr Nicole Phillip: PhD Deputy Director (Acting) Open Campus Country Sites, The University of the West Indies Open Campus Dr Nicole Phillip-Dowe is a leading scholar of Grenadian history, focussing on the role of women in Grenadian history from the 18th-20th centuries through detailed biographies of women across society. She is a prominent public historian and is vice-chair of the Grenada National Reparations Commission. Through this role she worked with the BBC on the recent documentary, Grenada, Confronting the past, in which Laura Trevelyan gave a public apology and donated £100,000 to Grenadians for their family’s role in the enslavement of 1000 people.

Dr Nicola Frith (Department of French, Edinburgh University), Author of Legacies of Enslavement in the French Republic | Home (2025), co-author of Decolonised Transformations: Confronting the University of Edinburgh’s History and Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism (2025), filmmaker of Doors of Return (2025) and founder of International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) 

2. Tuesday, 21 October, 9-11am, Palatine 50: Documentary Film screening of Doors of Return (2025) with film maker Dr Nicola Frith

[French, Edinburgh University, (author of Legacies of Enslavement in the French Republic | Home (2025)] for a special screening of the documentary film “Doors of Return” (2025), followed by a Q&A and discussion with IAS fellow Professor Beth Rose Middleton Manning (Native American Studies, UC Davis), Dr Liam Liburd (History) and other colleagues.

Please sign up via Oracle: https://ehjb.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com:443/fscmUI/redwood/learner/learn/redirect?learningItemId=300001158051834&learningItemType=ORA_CLASS

Across Africa lie ‘Doorways of No Return’; sites that mark the separation of African peoples from their spiritual and cultural origins and the beginnings of a perilous journey to enslavement in the Americas. The ‘Doorway of No Return’ in Ouidah on the coast of Benin is one such site: an ominous symbol of the final departure from the Motherland. So what would it take to go back through that portal? What memories remain of those who were stolen? What happened to those who were left behind? And what reparations are needed after centuries of separation?

Doorways of Return follows the trail of Joyce Hope Scott (an African American professor of African American and Black Diaspora Studies at Boston University) as she goes back through the portal. Guided by the voices of the traditional and crowned leaders, she learns of the far-reaching spiritual consequences of the theft of a people, and the longstanding resistance fought by the people of Benin against cultural dispossession. Her journey reveals Benin as a critical site of resistance and rematriation for those in the African Diaspora who are seeking restorative justice and ‘Doors of Return’ to their ancestral homelands.

The film is an International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) production.

3. Wednesday, 22 October, 2-4 pm: Black History Keynote lecture: Dr Nicole Philip's ‘is freedom we makin’: Lessons from the Grenadian Revolution 1979-1983. Lindisfarne Centre (St. Aidan's College)

4. Thursday, 23 October, 1-2pm: Department of History Workshop: Dr Nicole Philip's, ‘ceanglaichean’: Grenada’s Scottish Connections, Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies.