OXFORD
Oxford is proud to be the first city in the Anti-Racist City network.
It is a microcosm of the energy, campaigning and activism needed to create a truly anti-racist city.
Active anti-racism requires hard work, perseverance, and commitment.
This page brings together organisations already on that journey, and whose work you can join or support.
If you would like to have anti-racist organisations or work from your city included, please use our content submission page.
African Caribbean and African Kultural Heritage Initiative
ACKHI was established in 2003 to promote, protect and preserve the history, heritage and culture, of peoples of Black African heritage living and or working in Oxfordshire, as well as Black Afrika’s contributions to world development.
Black Oxford Untold Stories
Black Oxford Untold Stories celebrates the contributions and legacies of Oxford University's Black scholars from the turn of the 20th century to the present day. Over the years, Black Oxford Untold Stories has contributed significantly to disrupting the traditional narrative and visual imagery of Oxford University by challenging the attitudes and perception of the University's staff, students, faculties, and broader communities that historically Black students did not study at the University.
Centre of Pan African Thought
The Centre is an independent education and policy think tank that works to protect the human rights of African and African Caribbean people.
The Centre exists to help strengthen anti-discrimination policy making and support political actors with tackling the socioeconomic structures that prevent race equality.
Common Ground Oxford
Common Ground is a movement that sets out to examine Oxford’s colonial past in the context of its present-day inequalities.
Over the past few years, the university has made conscious effort to increase the numbers of ethnic minority students, and students from lower income backgrounds who enter the institution, as well as trying to tackle implicit bias.
Common Ground discusses class and race in relation to admissions and university life; they are debating a future for decolonisation in our spaces and our curricula; they are celebrating what it means to be ‘young, gifted and black’ in the U.K. today, and much more besides.
Join them for panel discussions, talks, poetry + spoken word, screenings, art and performance, in collaboration with academics, commentators, artists, campaigners, researchers and multiple student societies, and organisations from across the country.
The Kofo Collective
for Black Women at the University of Oxford
The Kofo Collective for Black Women at the University of Oxford seeks to serve the unique needs of black women at the university through a lens of inclusion, diversity, and engagement. The group centers three pillars of engagement: mentorship, social cohesion, and discussion-based events with members of and outside of the Oxford community.
Museum of Oxford: A Cup of Tea
The Museum of Oxford is now able to use the handling collection of historic cups, ranging from a Chinese tea-bowl from the 1780s, to a 1990s cup and saucer, to help children in local schools learn about trade, Empire and the reality behind ‘a nice cup of tea’
Oxford African & Caribbean Society
The Oxford African and Caribbean Society (ACS) is a student-run society at the University of Oxford
Their diverse body of members consists of undergraduates to postgraduates, scientists to lawyers from nations all over Africa, the Caribbean and beyond. They are committed to exploring, promoting and celebrating African and Caribbean culture within Oxford University. Alongside their central aim of cultural inclusivity, they also have a strong commitment to the welfare and wellbeing of black students - ensuring that the Oxford ACS is more than a society, rather, it is a home away from home.
Oxford University Africa Society
The Oxford University Africa Society (AfriSoc) focuses on African affairs at the University of Oxford. The Society seeks to set the agenda for the future of the African Continent by providing a platform for students hailing from or interested in Africa to critically engage. Above all, AfriSoc is a community of change agents passionate about Africa.
Pitt Rivers Museum
The Pitt Rivers is one of the leading and best-known museums of anthropology, ethnography and archaeology in the world and its collection of more than 500,000 items, acquired over more than 130 years, reflects an incredible breadth of culture. Objects range from musical instruments, weapons, masks, textiles, jewellery and tools, and cover all periods of human existence.
However, the history of the Museum and many of its objects is closely tied to British Imperial expansion and the colonial mandate to collect and classify objects from the world over. The processes of colonial collecting were often violent and inequitable towards those peoples being colonised. This difficult history has led the Museum to engage more closely with its past practices and the nature of its collections, display and interpretation and the effects these continue to have today. While such questions are being posed in museums across the sector, the nature of Pitt Rivers’ history, collections and displays (its historic labels including racist and derogatory language, commonly used at the time) makes these questions particularly pressing and especially challenging.
Torch: The Oxford Research Centre In The Humanities
TORCH is a nucleus of intellectual energy for the humanities and a place to develop new ideas and collaborations both within and beyond academia.
Since its creation, TORCH has raised over £3 million in grants and philanthropy to support researchers to develop research projects. Launched in May 2013, TORCH provides an important opportunity for Oxford’s humanities scholars to collaborate with researchers across other disciplines, and institutions; work with academics across all stages of their academic careers; develop partnerships with public and private institutions; engage with wider audiences; and bring together academic research, diverse industries, and the performing arts.
Uncomfortable Oxford
Uncomfortable Oxford is an academic-led organisation dedicated to raising awareness about the 'uncomfortable' aspects of history - racial inequality, gender and class discrimination, and legacies of empire.