Discover centuries of hidden Black history across the Medway Towns with Medway’s Got Culture: Black History Bus Tour, a specially created three-hour journey exploring the people, places and stories that have helped shape the area.
Taking place during Black History Month 2026, the guided bus tour is hosted by Medway Culture Club and has been designed and delivered by local historian and professional tour guide Rob Flood of Oral History Medway.
Across three hours and four stops, participants will discover more than five remarkable stories connected with Black people whose lives intersect with the history of Medway.
Among the figures explored are Sarah Forbes Bonetta, William Cuffay, Olaudah Equiano, Asquith Xavier, James Barnor and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
Together, their stories connect Medway with some of the most important themes in Black British history, including royalty, abolition, migration, the Royal Dockyard, railways, photography, music and the struggle for racial equality.
Sarah Forbes Bonetta had an extraordinary life that connected West Africa with Victorian Britain. Born in West Africa and orphaned as a child, she was later brought to Britain and became the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her story provides a fascinating window into race, class, empire and Victorian society.
The tour will also explore the life of William Cuffay, the son of a formerly enslaved man who became one of the leading Black figures in Britain’s nineteenth-century Chartist movement. Cuffay campaigned for political reform and working-class representation at a time when most people in Britain still had no vote.
Another important figure is Olaudah Equiano, whose autobiography became one of the most influential accounts associated with the campaign to abolish the transatlantic slave trade. His story helps connect the local landscape with the much wider history of enslavement, abolition and Black presence in eighteenth-century Britain.
The twentieth century is represented through figures including Asquith Xavier, whose stand against racial discrimination on Britain’s railways became an important moment in the struggle for workplace equality.
The tour also introduces participants to the extraordinary career of Ghanaian-born photographer James Barnor, whose work documented both Ghana’s transition to independence and the changing face of multicultural Britain.
Music forms another strand of the journey through the story of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the celebrated Black British composer whose achievements brought him international recognition at the beginning of the twentieth century.
By placing these stories within the streets, buildings and landmarks of Medway, the tour demonstrates that Black history is not something that happened somewhere else. It has been part of the history of towns and communities across Britain for centuries.
Participants will travel together by bus between selected locations, with Rob Flood providing historical context and revealing some of the lesser-known connections hidden within the Medway landscape.
The event is suitable for all ages, making it a particularly good opportunity for families to discover local Black history together.
Visitors are welcome to bring their own lunch and refreshments. Children must be accompanied by a responsible adult, and accompanying adults will also need to purchase a ticket.
Taking place during Black History Month 2026, the Black History Bus Tour offers a fascinating opportunity to see Medway differently — discovering stories of achievement, resistance, creativity and equality that are embedded within the area’s history but have too often remained overlooked.
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Black History Bus Tour – Medway’s Got Culture
Discover centuries of hidden Black history across the Medway Towns with Medway’s Got Culture: Black History Bus Tour,…