Music, spoken word, and public lectures on Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King — Black History Month has been exploring black art, history and culture.

Free events have included a night of soul music, DJed by our very own Soul Professor — Professor Patrick Callaghan, Head of the School of Health Sciences, and an evening of readings and conversation with Margaret Wrinkle, author of Wash, a novel on American slavery.

Highlights have included a performance by Gambian kora player Sura Susso, public lectures on Martin Luther King by Professor Peter Ling, Head of the University’s Department of American and Canadian Studies, and a public lecture by Pulitzer Prize winner Annette Gordon-Reed, Professor of History and Law at Harvard University.

Val Watson, Chair of the University’s BME Staff Network, said: “Black history and culture are often still seen as somehow ‘separate’ from the mainstream.”

She said it had been an opportunity to celebrate black culture at the University and beyond, and she hoped people had discovered something new that had changed their way of thinking.

blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/blackhistorymonth