“Change will not come if we wait for some other people or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
Those words feel particularly poignant this year.
The theme for Black History Month 2026 is Honouring Our Communities, and it has been an absolute privilege to spearhead a campaign that has introduced me to hundreds of extraordinary people from Black communities across the UK.
People whose heritage stretches from Botswana to Barbados, Ghana to Guyana, Somalia to St Lucia and beyond. Different cultures. Different stories. Different journeys. Yet united by something powerful: a determination to make a difference.
Our Honouring Black Britain campaign received a tremendous number of nominations. You will meet some of those nominees in the pages of the magazine, with many more featured here on the website.
Sadly, we could not include everyone. But I want to say this to every person who was nominated: someone saw you.
Someone saw your work. Someone valued your contribution. Someone believed that what you are doing deserves to be recognised.
Never underestimate what that means. Because history is not only made by the people whose names appear in textbooks. History is being made every day by ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
They are the people we pass in the street, sit beside on the bus, see at the school gates or live next door to. Driven by passion, personal experience, faith, frustration or simply a thirst for justice, they are starting enterprises, volunteering their time, mentoring young people, raising funds, feeding families, creating safe spaces, tackling inequalities and plugging gaps that should never have existed in the first place.
They are not waiting for somebody else to fix things.
They are being the change. People like Jenny Gordon, whose community group has become a lifeline for older Black people in Southampton. Fos and Jud, who joined forces through Peckham Soup Kitchen to support people in their community. Ayan Mahamoud MBE, creating opportunities for new generations of British-Somali artists.
You may not know their names… yet. But they are making history now.
And Black History Month UK is proud to play a part in ensuring their contribution is seen, celebrated and remembered. Of course, there are names in this edition that many will recognise.
Stormzy, who continues to use his platform and resources to help young Black people turn talent and ambition into opportunity.
And the incomparable Kanya King CBE, founder of the MOBO Awards, who sadly died earlier this year. Kanya did not simply create an awards ceremony. She created a platform, disrupted an industry and changed the landscape of British music and culture. She embodied this year’s theme: seeing what was missing and doing something about it. Her remarkable story is beautifully shared in these pages by her dear friend Claudia Webbe.
One Minute to Remember
Honouring our communities must also mean remembering those upon whose shoulders we stand. Throughout this edition, we pay tribute to stalwarts of Black British life who are no longer with us.
This October, we are asking everyone organising a Black History Month event or activity to do something very simple.
Pause for one minute. One minute of silence.
One minute to remember the pioneers, activists, artists, educators, campaigners, community leaders, parents, grandparents and quiet revolutionaries who helped shape the communities we know today.
People such as Lord Herman Ouseley, Baroness Rosalind Howells, Alex Wheatle, Eric Huntley and Ralph Ottey and Bonnie Greer And I cannot allow this edition to pass without acknowledging the death of Professor Jason Arday.
His death sent shockwaves through many parts of the Black community. In the weeks before his death, he had been subjected to intense public scrutiny following allegations which he denied. Whatever views people held about the issues surrounding him, behind the headlines was a human being. He was a son, a loved one, a colleague and a man whose family now lives with a loss that cannot be undone.
For many Black people, particularly within academia, his death has raised painful emotions and difficult questions about scrutiny, accountability, race, public judgement and the human cost when debate becomes relentless.
We include in Black History Month Magazine a poem dedicated to Professor Arday, written by a close friend, which seeks to capture some of that pain and the wider questions his story has left behind.
Sometimes honouring our community means celebrating. Sometimes it means remembering. Sometimes it means refusing to look away from difficult conversations.
And sometimes it simply means stopping long enough to say: we see you, we remember you and your contribution mattered.
Making Today’s History Visible
Black History Month will always provide a space to remember the giants whose lives have shaped our collective story. We will continue to speak the names of Mary Seacole, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and so many others whose courage changed the world. But history cannot only be something we look backwards to find.
That is why this year we are deliberately shining a light on the unseen, the unsung and the perhaps unfamiliar people who are sacrificially working to make their communities better right now. That is why you will see them front and centre on our posters.
Because today’s community champion may be tomorrow’s historical figure. And we should not have to wait until somebody is gone before we tell them that what they did mattered.
Barack Obama will be in the UK this October, and perhaps somehow this magazine will find its way into his hands. If it does, I hope he sees that, eighteen years later, communities across Britain are still answering his call.
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
Whether you embrace Black History Month wholeheartedly or still question why a month dedicated to Black history is necessary, its purpose remains important.
It gives us an opportunity to remember who we are, what we have contributed and where we come from. There is still so much we do not know. So many stories waiting to be uncovered. So many names waiting to be spoken. So much history waiting to be reclaimed, recorded and shared.
Our individual heritage may begin on a Caribbean island, in an African nation or right here in Britain. Our languages, traditions, faiths, food, music and experiences may differ.
But together, we form a magnificent tapestry. A tapestry of creativity and courage.
Compassion and community. Resilience and resistance. Service and sacrifice.
Time and again, our communities have stepped forward to support, to serve, to meet a need, to plug a gap, to open a door or simply to make sure somebody has something to eat. That deserves more than a footnote.
That is Black history.
And this October, we honour it.
We honour them. And perhaps most importantly, we remind ourselves that history is not only behind us.
We are making it now.
Cherron Inko-Tariah MBE
Editor, Black History Month UK Magazine
#HonouringOurCommunities