Black History In London: Private Walking Tour

What your day looks like

An enlightening London walk encompassing political, religious, and military Westminster. Black history in this London tour begins in the 1500s and continues until…well, today. It’s not all about slavery either, far from it. For 1000 years Westminster has been Britain’s royal and political power base and historically the centre of Empire. Trade, war, religion, and reform: all originate or formulate in Westminster and Black history has been impacted by all of these things. Whilst Black British history does not begin or finish with the Atlantic Slave Trade it does play a significant historical part. If you’ve ever wondered how the British side of the ‘triangular trade’ started and ended, this tour covers all points. We’ll also explore the lives of those involved through memorials, statues, and buildings. The legal status of Black Britons or, to be more precise, Africans owned by Britons, was similarly directed and legislated from this one small area. However, we will discover, that even this is not as tidy as you would suppose. We’ll also come across some Black Londoners who had, what we would now call, a ‘lived experience’ as enslaved and free men and who wasted no energy in embracing freedom. Our stories involve lots of people; Britons, Africans and Americans, men and women, right up until today, where we’ll discover modern Black contributions to Britain’s political life. The Black experience that has resulted from Westminster’s dual authority, royal and political, tells a diverse story of tolerance, persecution, legislation, racism, emancipation, and integration. In Westminster Black history is visible everywhere, even in fragments or within structures more universally ‘British’. If you know where to look the history surrounds us.