The Fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester in 1945 was a pivotal event in the fight against colonialism and for African independence.
80 years on you are invited to join award-winning author, broadcaster and academic Gary Younge as he discusses this global moment in Manchester with an insightful lecture and Q&A for Black History Month.
The Second World War was not just a multinational effort but a multiracial and multicultural one as well, in which black and brown people came to Europe to save the continent from its own pathologies. But the freedom they fought for did not apply to them and so they had to fight through the consequent peace for equality.
Eighty years after the Fifth Pan African Congress in Manchester, the issues it raised remain deeply relevant to our contemporary conversations about immigration, racism, islamophobia, antisemitism and national identity.
Lecture and Q&A will be chaired by anti-racist historian and Manchester Metropolitan University lecturer, Dr Shirin Hirsch.
Gary Younge
Gary Younge is an award-winning author, broadcaster and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Formerly editor-at-large at The Guardian, he has written seven books, most recently Pigeonholed: Creative Freedom as an Act of Resistance (Faber, 2025). Winner of the 2023 Orwell Prize for Journalism and the 2025 Robert. B. Silvers Prize for Journalism, he has written for the New York Review of Books, Granta, GQ and New Statesman, among others, and made radio and television documentaries on subjects ranging from gay marriage to Brexit.
Suitable for 12+ (under 16s must have an accompanying adult)
Before the lecture (5.00pm – 7.00pm) book your tickets to explore PHM’s galleries and archives. These hold the Negro Association Manchester Membership Ledger, Labour Party material about the Pan African Federation and a rich collection of material about the life of Congress attendee Thomas Bangbala.
We will also be joined by libraries and archives from across the city including the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre, North West Film Archive and Working Class Movement Library, who will be showcasing their amazing collections highlighting stories of resistance and solidarity. And you will be able to find out more about The Guardian’s Legacies of Enslavement Programme.
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