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Absence-Presence of Durham’s Black History Walking Tour Amidst Our Working Lives
20 October 2025 - 20 October 2025
12:30PM - 4:30PM
Galilee Chapel, Durham Cathedral, and University College (Castle)
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Free
Join us for “Absence/Presence of Durham’s Black History Walking Tour” around Durham city centre followed by a roundtable with invited panellists, including Dr Nicole Phillip (University of West Indies, Head of the Grenada Reparation Comimssion).
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A ‘walking tour’ around Durham city centre. This is a self-guided audio tour lasting around 90-120 minutes, if completed in full and can be accessed at Absence/Presence of Durham's Black History
Although the “Absence/Presence of Durham’s Black History Walking Tour” is self-guided and you are welcome to do it in your own time, we recommend you begin at the Galilee Chapel in Durham Cathedral at 12.30 pm where we will be able to offer logistical support including hard copy of the walking trail/maps if you need it.
We recommended that you bring headphones for the best experience and use WiFi to download the pdf of the walking trail and the audio tour outside the cathedral (as there might be network and loading issues within the cathedral) before you begin in order to save data. You can also download/print the PDF of the entire walking trail, a summarized map of it and audio recordings with each entry – all of which we are preparing now. You can either hear or read the entries to enable accessibility. Please allow 90 to 120 minutes for the walking trail to enable talks/listening/reading/ at each stop.
Monday 20th October, 2.30-4.30PM: Roundtable:
A roundtable of invited panellists will be responding to the Black History Walking Tour at University College on Palace Green. Participants will have the chance to engage with the walking tour, and make comments and raise questions.
This walking tour will allow us to engage with Durham's built heritage outside the classroom in the midst of our working lives. The working lives of the enslaved, colonised, miners and the possible links between them are central to the project.
What's it about?
At each stop on the tour, you can read about/listen to Durham city centre’s (as well as beyond Durham city) link to enslavement, mining or colonialism as well as the lives of various minoritised individuals. Alongside, the trail also highlights broader “politically black” histories, including both historic and more contemporary experiences of other minority ethnic communities. In the process we are identifying histories which do not only consider black communities to be victims. The content has been drawn from John Charlton’s book: Hidden Chains: The Slavery Business and the North-East of England (1600-1865) (2008) and the extensive research on Black History in the North-East carried out by the late community historian Sean Creighton. The walking tour was launched in October 2024 and is based on university research that groups explored in various workshops over the years.
The roundtable in the second half of the event will be led by panellists engaging with the walking tour and will give participants a chance to explore these themes through discussion and comments.
We hope these resources will be of interest for an audience with a shared curiosity on heritage studies including ‘difficult’ heritage as well as those with interests in identity, religion and history. In short, this event will highlight the history of the city of Durham and beyond of which the University and Cathedral are a part. We hope that the walking trails and the collections will invite the participants to engage critically with how history is remembered, omitted, and commemorated in public spaces, everyday built structures/buildings. It seeks to do so by positioning individuals as “informed and active interpreters” of a place’s heritage rather than passive onlookers.
Who's leading the event?
Dr Sol Gamsu (Sociology), Dr Liam Liburd (History) and Prof Nayanika Mookherjee (Anthropology), in collaboration with colleagues from Durham Cathedral.
Open to
Adults
Of particular interest to
Anyone with an in interest in the working lives of heritages, glocal (local and global) histories, cultures and communities of Durham and beyond.
Scheduling information
- Walking tour 12:30 - 14:30
- Roundtable 14:30 - 16:30
Register here.