David Olusoga in conversation

David Olusoga, author of ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History’, Guardian columnist, broadcaster of ‘Civilisations’ and ‘The House in Time’, and historian, will be interviewed by Manchester School of Architecture Student, Quadri Sogunle-Aregbesola. In conversation, he will reflect on the contemporary British urban landscape and its relationship to the Black Lives Matter Movement and COVID-19 events this summer. Quadri, a member of the MSA BLM team, will also discuss the Digital Black Urban Manchester map, which will be launched online immediately after the event. Following the interview, we will be hosting a live Q&A session. 

David Olusoga

David Olusoga was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to a Nigerian father and British mother. He grew up in Gateshead, at 14, the National Front had attacked his house and the family  was eventually forced to leave as a result of the racism He later attended the University of Liverpool to study the history of slavery. He was researcher on the 1999 BBC series Western Front and then became a producer of history programmes after university, working from 2005 on programmes such as Namibia: Genocide and the Second Reich, The Lost Pictures of Eugene Smith and Abraham Lincoln: Saint or Sinner? he became a television presenter, beginning in 2014 with The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire, about the Indian, African and Asian troops who fought in the First World War, followed by several other documentaries and appearances on the BBC. In 2015 it was announced that he would co-present Civilisations, alongside the historians Mary Beard and Simon Schama. His most recent TV series include Black and British: A Forgotten History, The World’s War, A House Through Time and the BAFTA award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners.

As a writer, Olusoga has written history books and those related to his TV series. In 2016 his book Black and British: A Forgotten History won  the Longman–History Today Trustees Award and the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. His other books include The World’s War, which won First World War Book of the Year in 2015, The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism (2011) which he co-authored with Casper Erichsen, and Civilisations (2018). He has written for The Guardian, The Observer, New Statesman and BBC History magazine; Olusoga was included in the 2019 and 2020 editions of the Powerlist, a ranking of the 100 most influential Black Britons. Olusoga became Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to history and to community integration. Professor Olusoga gave his inaugural professorial lecture on “Identity, Britishness and the Windrush” at the University of Manchester in May 2019.