History Matters is a nonprofit collective, which has for the past 10 years been promoting research into the history of African and Caribbean people in Britain. We work to encourage people of all ages, backgrounds and educational experiences, to engage with this history. Because the lack of access to Black British histories has a significant effect on young people, we seek opportunities to include them in our work.
For almost a year, we have been planning our 3rd New Perspectives Conference, and working alongside the ‘Knowledge is Power’ course at BSix, which has similar aims and objectives as History Matters, to ensure students have an opportunity to participate in this conference. As such, permission was gained by the college’s former management, to use the college as a venue for the conference, scheduled for November 9th 2024. On the evening before the conference was due to be held, we were informed that the event was banned by the college over ‘safeguarding concerns’. This can only be seen as an extreme attempt by the new NCC management to disrupt our efforts and restrict the promotion of Black British History. But it is also a clear attempt to take away an opportunity for their own students to present their work, contribute their knowledge to the conference, and gain experience and skills in public speaking.
As this decision was delivered to us in the evening before the conference, we were left without a venue and forced to re-direct the over 70 people who were due to attend, some of whom had travelled cross-country and internationally for the event. This caused immeasurable disruption, and some attendees arrived to the venue that had been advertised for months, only to be turned away. The students themselves were victim to this, and almost prevented from attending at the last-minute venue we had found, due to there being no way for us to contact and inform them out of college hours.
History Matters therefore sees the actions of NCC BSix College management as racist and harmful to their own students and wider community. We demand a public apology from the college, and full explanation as to why the decision to ban us from using the premises, was made in the first place, and indeed made at the very last minute.
History Matters stands in solidarity with students and staff members at NCC BSix College, and the industrial action taking place to challenge the college’s poor management.
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