Events

Upcoming Events:

Shedding Light

A new permanent display at the Ashmolean Museum 
Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2PH
Open now

Through the creation of a 1950-60s Caribbean living room – a powerful symbol of British Caribbean heritage, resilience and identity – Shedding Light reveals the intertwined histories of colonialism, enslavement, sugar production and ceramics. This new display within the European Ceramics Gallery is the outcome of a collaboration, bringing together a group of Oxford-based producers with artists, project consultants and a Museum team.

Find out more about the project

Accounting for Black Lives: ‘Legacies of Slavery’ Projects at the University of Oxford

30 October 2025, 4.30pm - 6pm
Helwys Hall, Regent’s Park College, Oxford, OX1 2LB 
 
Dr Michael Joseph, University of Cambridge, will deliver this lecture. Michael is a historian of the Caribbean and its diaspora in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and an Assistant Professor in Black British History at the University of Cambridge. He is currently working on two main projects: a comparative history of anti-colonial political thought in five Caribbean islands – Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, Martinique, and Guadeloupe – from c.1914 to 1939; and an introduction to Black British history for a general audience, Black British History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press). Michael’s published research has touched on a variety of issues: from race, gender, and citizenship in the early twentieth-century Caribbean to the politics of institutional 'legacies of slavery' reports. One article won the French History Prize for 2021.
 
The lecture starts at 4.30pm, with tea and coffee offered from 4.00pm. There will be refreshments after the lecture, followed by an informal College dinner for those who wish to join us. The dinner will cost £10, with no need to book in advance. The lecture will be filmed, and posted on the Trust’s website soon after the event.
 
For further details, please contact david.howard@kellogg.ox.ac.uk
No need to book in advance

Kellogg College Black History Month Annual Lecture

29 October 2025, 5:30pm to 6:30 pm 

The Hub, Kellogg College
 

Kellogg's annual Black History Month lecture to be given by Dr José Lingna Nafafé.

Legal, moral, ethical and political debate on the abolition of slavery has traditionally been understood to have been initiated by Europeans in the eighteenth century – figures such as William Wilberforce, Thomas Buxton, Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and David Livingstone. To the extent that Africans are recognised as having played any role in ending slavery, especially in the seventeenth century, their efforts are typically confined to sporadic and impulsive cases of resistance, involving ‘shipboard revolts’, ‘maroon communities’, ‘individual fugitive slaves’ and ‘household revolts’.

This lecture explores how Lourenço da Silva Mendonça, an African Prince and the historical actors with whom he was involved – such as Black Christians from confraternities in Angola, Brazil, the Caribbean, Portugal and Spain – argued for the complete abolition of the Atlantic slave trade 147 years before Wilberforce and his generation of abolitionists.

Find out more and register

Equity, Diversity and Belonging Lecture 2025: This Is a Low: Advice for Difficult Times 

29 October 2025, 5:30pm to 7pm  
Department of Education, 15 Norham Gardens, Oxford 

The Department of Education are delighted to welcome Professor Jason Arday to deliver this year’s Equity, Diversity and Belonging Lecture. Jason is Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge. He is a brilliant speaker whose scholarship on intersectionality, combined with his personal story, is both powerful and accessible.

This event will resonate with faculty, educators, and students alike and will be especially inspiring to people from racial minority backgrounds, neurodivergent individuals, and those from widening participation backgrounds, as he brings a powerful, authentic voice to issues of equity and belonging. 

Find out more and register here

Black History Month 2025 - Show and Tell

29 October,  Session 1: 9:30am to 10:30am, Session 2: 11am to 12:30pm
1st Floor, Weston Library, Broad Street 

To celebrate Black History Month, the Bodleian Libraries and Oxford SU invite you to a show-and-tell of items from the Weston Library Special Collections and Archives. Curators have selected items that showcase Black history, Black activism and Black culture from the 19th century onwards. From materials relating to the Anti-Slavery Society to photographs showcasing life in 1960s Birmingham. 

If you're attending the event and have access needs, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Email: studentengagement@oxfordsu.ox.ac.uk 

Find out more and book your ticket

on Black poppies (& Other seeds)

Exhibition launch event: 30 October, 11am 
Rhodes House, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RG

The Rhodes Trust will host an interactive art tour of our new exhibition on Black poppies (& Other seeds) by Artist in Residence Rebecca Korang led by curator Maitha Alsuwaidi.

Responding to the theme of 'Radical Joy,' Korang centres the stories of Black prisoners of war in the Second World War. The exhibition follows artistic and material explorations of her personal archive of photographs sourced from eBay, combined with tools and mediums including textile, weaving, and painting. 

Find out more and register 

St John’s College - Black History Month Lecture 2025: In a climate of fear of 'the other', new leaders must emerge

30 October 5pm to 6pm 
Garden Quad Auditorium, St John's College
 

St John's College is holding its annual Black History Month Lecture on October 30, followed by a drinks reception. This year’s lecture will be given by The Lord Woolley of Woodford and is entitled, In a climate of fear of 'the other', new leaders must emerge. Lord Woolley is the founder and former director of Operation Black Vote; chaired the UK Government's Race Disparity Unit advisory group from January 2018 to July 2020; and in 2021 became Principal of Homerton College, Cambridge – the first Black man to be appointed head of an Oxbridge college.

Find out more and register
 

Black History Month Lecture: Trust, Performance and the Future of Public Service with Dr Alison Heydari

31 October 2025, 9:30am to 11:30am (tea and coffee from 9:30am, lecture begins at 10am)
Lecture Theatre, Nuffield College

Alison Heydari was appointed as Director for the Police Race Action Plan in 2023, which sees her driving a national change programme necessary to address critically low levels of trust and confidence in Black communities and improve operational effectiveness. Her varied career as a detective and in uniform roles include Public Protection, geographic commander and emergency response commander. Alison has managed impactive community issues, driven the strategic response to hate crime, harmful practices and improving victim care, and was a crisis Negotiator for eight years. Her policing imperative is to utilise the tenets of Procedural Justice to cocreate solutions to community problems, build legitimacy and stakeholder trust, reduce harm to communities and meet the need for greater equity in criminal justice outcomes.

Find out more and register
 

Equali-tea

4 November, 11am to 12 noon
Institute of Developmental and Regenerative, Medicine (IDRM), Old Road Campus, Headington 

Join Chief Diversity Officer Tim Soutphommasane and members of the Equality and Diversity Unit for tea, coffee, a biscuit and a chat at this informal drop-in event.

The Equali-tea is a great opportunity to hear updates from Tim on our current EDI work and to meet colleagues, students, and members of the Equality and Diversity Unit. The event is kindly being hosted by staff at the IDRM and we are delighted that Iris Hofmann, Head of Operations at the IDRM, is able to join us to share some of the EDI activities taking place there. 

If you have any questions about the event, please contact us at equality@admin.ox.ac.uk

The informal session is open to all staff and students; no need to book

Black History Month - In Conversation with Jade Bentil

Doctorow Hall, St Edmund Hall
4 November 2025, 5:30pm to 6:30pm

Everyone is welcome for an evening with Jade Bentil, Black feminist and writer, as she explores the rich and complex histories of Black women who migrated to Britain in the second half of the twentieth century.
 
In her talk, 'Cartographies of Desire: Mapping Black Women’s Self-Making in Twentieth-Century Britain', Jade will discuss her ongoing oral history project, which examines how these women navigated the intersecting forces of race, gender, sexuality, class, and empire—while building lives filled with friendship, romance, and joy.
 
This event promises to be a thought-provoking exploration of memory, identity, and belonging, offering new insights into Black British women’s lived experiences.
 
No need to register

Supporting Neurodivergent Staff in the Workplace 

13 November 2025, 11am to 12.30pm

Online

In collaboration with The Confident Manager (TCM) series, Jordelle Akinola, Staff Disability and EDI Advisor, invites colleagues to join the TCM webinar: Supporting Neurodivergent Staff in the Workplace 

The webinar provides an overview of neurodiversity and how to support neurodivergent staff in the workplace. Topics include:
 

• The concept of neurodiversity and common types of neurodivergence; 
• Support and workplace adjustments; and
• The models of disability in workplace practices and taking a strengths-based skills approach.

Please contact Jordelle if you have any questions about the webinar at jordelle.akinola@admin.ox.ac.uk

Find out more and book your place

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Calendar of EDI dates 2025/26

You may find this list of awareness days and weeks useful in timing events and communications activities. 

The University of Oxford is a diverse community, with people from many religious and cultural backgrounds. While this calendar is intended as a starting point, we recognise that many other dates are significant to individuals and communities. 

If we have missed an important date or got something wrong, please let us know.

Please note, some dates are observed at different times across the world.  The dates below are the dates observed by communities in the UK.  

Key

* begin at sunset 

** begins with the sighting of the moon