Our Vision.

Education should be one of the most freeing and liberating experience one can partake in. At present this is too often not the case. We see Black students across the world entering an education system that is deeply flawed, and even violent, in its approach to Blackness. The vision of our project is two-tiered, we want to:

  1. Encourage the development of radical, imaginative, and transformative knowledge that can truly change the world.

  2. Create a space where the healing and wellbeing of Black folk lies at the heart of the educational experience.

This project is born out of a desire for more. After years of campaigning for the ‘decolonisation’ of curricula we found that the response institutions were able to offer would never be enough. You cannot decolonise something that is built on colonisation itself. The ‘Western’ University is not fit for purpose when considering the decolonial agenda. That is why we exist, to build a space that can produce decolonial knowledge, untethered from a colonial space.

This is an anti-colonial, queer, and Black feminist project at its heart. We exist to (re)imagine the possibilities and boundlessness that exists within education and the production of knowledge. We recognise and work from a space that acknowledges the relationship between healing and education, on the basis that the colonial curriculum, and all other aspects of coloniality within society, is harming the mental wellness of Black people. Similarly, we recognise the necessity of a healing and restorative space to be able to engage in education and knowledge production in the freest and most transformative way possible.

We recognise that the current education system is a site of trauma for too many Black students. This is entirely unacceptable and we are committed to addressing and transforming this landscape. We will be teaming up with Black mental health practitioners, Black spiritualists, and community wellbeing support groups to deliver free and accessible  support to Black students across the country.

Academia should not be a practice that takes place hidden in lofty institutions. It should not be a site of trauma and violence for Black students. Rather, education should be free, anti-colonial, and accessible to all — it should serve the purpose of creating a better world. This is the kind of education that we will provide.

Our 10-point Plan: 

  1. Provide Black radical books to people right across the Black community who would otherwise not have access to it. This includes those incarcerated.

  2. Deliver a range of open access, accessible online lectures and teachings to the community on topics that include: pre-colonial African philosophies, decolonial approaches to climate justice, decolonial approaches to the study of gender and sexuality, Black British history, African diasporic spiritualities and theologies and much more. We aim to recover the knowledge that was stolen from us through the passage of slavery and the oppression of colonisation using a decolonial Black feminist and queer lens.

  3. Create a space of community and care for Black students.There is a mental health crisis amongst Black students that universities are failing to sufficiently address. As an organisation, healing is a foundational principle and we will be providing a space in which Black students can access various modes of mental health support and healing work. We will connect with Black therapists, counsellors and community healers to offer a range of support to our community.

  4. Build an open access, free, and expansive online library of radical readings from people across the world. We will no longer stand for the gatekeeping of knowledge for those who desire access to it.

  5. Create a publication — the type of knowledge that is being produced will only ever be as radical as the ‘peers’ reviewing it. Our journal, and later our Press, will centre radical and transformational thought that may not be respected under the current frame of knowledge. Our work will be driven by the radical Black imagination— it is all that can cut through Eurocentric thought.

  6. Facilitate a member’s space for emerging Black academics that need support and community during and beyond their academic journey.

  7. Distribute and create a podcast that will explore complex and liberatory ideas in accessible and simplistic ways. This podcast will speak to Black thinkers, organisers, academics, spiritualists and creatives. It will allow anyone to tune in and learn something new about the history, present, and futures of Black liberation through a critical lens.

  8. Gain premises — a physical space for our work will act as a hub and a space for all Black people to access. This space will include; teaching rooms, a book shop, restaurant, and healing areas. The space will be intentionally designed and curated to ensure it’s welcoming and doesn’t further perpetuate the physical aspects of coloniality that we are fighting against.

  9. Host an annual conference that brings together Black radical thinkers ( not only academics) to collectively produce knowledge and visions for Black liberation.

  10. Provide free and accessible education centred on the freedom of Black people, which necessarily succeeds the freedom of all people.