Special Black History Month lecture by Dr Stephen Tuck, University of Oxford

Co-sponsored by the New Art Exchange

In late 1964 and early 1965, just weeks before he was killed, Malcolm X visited Britain. He took part in a debate at the Oxford Union, spoke at the London School of Economics and Birmingham University Students’ Union, and visited Smethwick in the West Midlands to highlight the racist policies of the local MP and council who were trying to prevent the sale of homes to non-white families. This talk explores Malcolm’s visits to Britain, setting them in the context of connections between British and American movements for race equality, and the attempts by African Americans and black Britons to use the transatlantic connection for their own purposes. Malcolm’s visits exposed larger issues of Black Power, the end of empire, British race relations, immigration, and student rights. He radicalized a new generation of British activists and impacted the debate about race in the UK. In turn, his time in Britain gave him a new perspective on the global struggle for racial equality.

Stephen Tuck is a university lecturer in American History at the University of Oxford. His prize-winning books include The Other Special Relationship: Race and Rights in Britain and America (2014), Fog of War: The Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement (2012), We Ain’t What We Ought To Be: The Black Freedom Struggle From Emancipation to Obama (2011), Beyond Atlanta: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Georgia (2003), and the forthcoming book The Night Malcolm X Spoke at the Oxford Union: A Transatlantic Story of Antiracist Protest (2014).

Places are free, but limted. Visit http://www.tuck.eventbrite.co.uk to register.