This Black History Month we've enjoyed a variety of initiatives intended to help us understand, celebrate and become further educated on the event. 

Talking Tables' Paris also provided the whole team with a useful resource list -from books to films to events that can further your knowledge of Black History Month and black culture. We've included this here so you can also make use of it:

Books

Podcasts

Closet Confessions – Candice Brathwaite and Coco Sarel
Got something to confess, sis…?Good job because author and journalist, Candice Brathwaite, and presenter and TikTok comedy star, Coco Sarel, are inviting you into their closet of confession to drop their truths, and yours…

1619 by The New York Times - Nikole Hannah-Jones
Examines the events that led to the beginning of American slavery in 1619.

The Nod - Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse
the show covers a wide range of topics, from music and art to the politics of race and the history of Black America.

Notes from America - Kai Wright
Notes from America is a weekly podcast from WNYC Studios that explores the stories behind the headlines of the day.

Express yourself black man
The aim of the podcast is to aid black men in managing their stress and provide them access to health resources including therapy, health care, and more.

Sista Brunch
Hosted by NAACP Award-winning director Anya Adams (Blackish, Fresh Off the Boat, G.L.O.W.) and Fanshen Cox, award-winning playwright, and co-author of the Inclusion Rider, the podcast’s mission is to build a community around the isolating experience that is career hunting—and inspire young people to reach for their dream careers.

Exhibitions

https://peckhamlevels.org/ - FREE ENTRY

What’s it about: Home is more than the four bricked walls in which we lay our heads when the sunsets and the night-time comes. Home is comfort, Home is refuge, Home is community, Home is a place where you belong.

https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/the-missing-thread

What's it about: This autumn, Somerset House explores the stories of Black British fashion in a major new exhibition, The Missing Thread, curated by the Black Orientated Legacy Development Agency (BOLD). Spanning from the 1970s to the present day, The Missing Thread charts the shifting landscape of Black British culture and the unique contribution it has made to Britain’s rich design history. 

https://www.poplarunion.com/

What’s it about: Shilonite Simon-Mathurin’s project ‘Living Legacies: 75 Years On’ commemorates the 75th anniversary of Windrush and documents and explores the stories of individuals from the 1st and 2nd generation.

TV Shows

Breaking Through with Zeze Millz
Airing on ITV1 – October 11
In honour of Black History Month, Zeze Millz is sitting down with household names from Coronation Street and Bridgerton to celebrate Black British actors in the TV industry.

Black In Fashion
Airing on ITV1 – October 15 (available to stream on ITVX – October 15).
Black In Fashion aims to show exactly how as it follows the UK's first Black Fashion Gala, GUAP, in their attempts to put on a first-of-its-kind show at the Natural History Museum.

For Crown and Country
Airing on ITV1 – October 22 (available to stream on ITVX – October 1).
Directed by Jordan Thomas, For Crown and Country sees ex-Marine Ben McBean celebrate his fellow Black military heroes past and present.

Three Little Birds
Airing on ITV1 and ITVX in October
Sir Lenny Henry's Three Little Birds debuts the gripping drama follows the lives of three women, Leah (Rochelle Neil), Chantrelle (Saffron Coomber) and Hosanna (Yazmin Belo), who journey together from Jamaica to the UK post-Windrush and find it's anything but a dream.

White Nanny, Black Child
Chanel 5
White Nanny, Black child explores the story of over 70,000 West African children who were fostered unofficially by white British families between 1955 and 1995, as their parents pursued dreams of a better life in Britain.

Fresh Cuts,
ITVX
2022 saw ITV release the first series of untold stories from new directors for Black History Month. Fresh Cuts returns this Black History Month with even more stories from Black British filmmakers, with topics including military, medicine, mental health and fashion.

Sasha
Channel 4
Part of Channel 4's UNTOLD series, this documentary centres of the shooting of Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson. As Sasha slowly recovers from her extensive injuries, a filmmaker who had been following her in the year up to her shooting tries to piece together what happened.

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues (2022)
Apple TV+
In addition to writing a winning memoir about growing up in New Orleans, trumpeter Louis Armstrong was a copious keeper of his thoughts. The shelves in the Queens home he shared with his wife of nearly 30 years, Lucille, were lined with audiotapes he made of those ruminations and conversations. With those tapes, along with a treasure trove of archival images, director Sacha Jenkins creates a fabulous portrait of an artist in his own voice, on his own terms.

Minding the Gap
Hulu
On the surface, this extraordinary documentary from Bing Liu is a love letter to skateboarding. But scratch a little deeper and you'll find Minding the Gap's vast depths. A rich and thoughtful tale of young people growing up in 21st century America, it explores domestic trauma, systemic racism and classism. It resonates beyond the skate park.

Black-ish
Channel 4 / Apple TV
A family man struggles to gain a sense of cultural identity while raising his kids in a predominantly white, upper-middle-class neighborhood. 

Blackface
Iplayer
David Harewood documentary on the story of racist Minstrelsy and how it was prime time TV in the UK in the Seventies.

When We Were Kings
Prime Video
Documentary about the famous Rumble in the Jungle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.

Netflix watches

Becoming
Netflix
Becoming follows the sold-out national book tour for Michelle Obama’s 2018 memoir, as she interacts with adoring fans, with young women aspiring to follow in her footsteps and with family members who let loose around her. You visit her childhood home and see how she overcame obstacles, met a young man named Barack and grew into the amazing woman she is.

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America
Netflix
Not many shows spotlight Black Americans' contributions to the culinary world, but Netflix docuseries High on the Hog does an exceptional job, taking you backward and forward in time through food -- and culture. Through four episodes, host Stephen Satterfield travels to Benin and around the United States, connecting with, savoring and learning about Black chefs from the past and present. Check it out and be wowed by Gullah traditions, a Wall Street oyster empire in the 1800s, and the 200-year-old origins of mac and cheese in the US.

13th
Netflix
Documentary about the mass incarceration of black men in the US.

Films

Unforgivable Blackness
The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. Ken Burns documentary about the first black champion heavyweight.

Malcolm
Spike Lee film biography of Malcolm X.

Summer of Soul
In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary-part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was never seen and largely forgotten--until now. SUMMER OF SOUL shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Ray Baretto, Abbey Lincoln & Max Roach and more.