Goldsmiths MA Black British History and the Goldsmiths History Department are delighted that Patrick Vernon OBE will deliver the inaugural Goldsmiths Black British History Annual Lecture, titled “Why Black Lives Matters is Part of Black British History.”

A link to this online talk will be sent ahead of the event.

Professor Patrick Vernon OBE is recently appointed Independent Non- Executive Director of Birmingham and Solihull ICS where he leads on inequalities, Chair of Citizenship Partnership for HSIB and Non-Executive Director for Hertfordshire NHS Trust. He is also Associate Director for Connected Communities for the Centre for Ageing Better. He is also a Clore and Winston Churchill Fellow, Fellow of Goodenough College, Fellow at Imperial War Museum, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and former associate fellow for the department of history of medicine at Warwick University. Patrick was awarded an OBE in 2012 for his work on tackling health inequalities and ethnic minority communities. Since 2010 he has been leading the campaign for National Windrush Day and in 2018 kick-started the campaign for an amnesty for the Windrush Generation as part of the Windrush Scandal.

In 2018 he received an honorary PhD from Wolverhampton University for his work on migration and cultural history and was selected as one of the 1000 Progressive Londoner by the Evening Standard. In 2019 he was awarded a lifetime achievement award for campaigning and advocacy work by the SMK Foundation. In 2020 Patrick was selected by British Vogue as one of Britain’s top 20 campaigners and was included in the 2020 Power list of 100 influential Black People in Britain. In 2020 he was co-author of 100 Great Black Britons. In 2020 Patrick established the Majonzi Fund with Ubele which is providing small grants to families and community organisations to organise commemoration events for individuals from BAME communities who have died of covid-19 over the last 19 months. Finally, Patrick is a broadcaster and writes blogs and articles for the national and international media on healthcare, cultural heritage, and race. In August 2021 Patrick was appointed by Wolverhampton University as Honorary Professor of Cultural Heritage and Community Leadership for the Department of Community Development.