The Henry Louis Gates Jr Lectures: David Olusoga and Skip Gates on Finding Britain's Slave Traders

Historian, author and broadcaster Professor David Olusoga will be in conversation with Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr as part of the Gates Lectures series. 

Please note the event takes place at 4.30pm on Sunday 1 November. Previously artist Kerry James Marshall was due to appear, but sadly has had to withdraw. We are delighted that Professor David Olusoga is able to join us and discuss his latest series where he meets the historians who have built the Register of British Slave Traders. For five years, they have searched through thousands of documents, piecing together a comprehensive picture of over 13,000 individuals who were investors in the slave trade.

About David Olusoga:

Professor David Olusoga is a popular author, historian, presenter, BAFTA-winning film-maker and keynote speaker.

He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester who specialises in the British Empire and how we experience its lasting effects in modern society.

David is the author of ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History‘ (2016 and 2021), which explores the global slave-trading of the British empire, and how Britain’s modern society and the 19th century economic and industrial boom was built on American slavery. The book was awarded the Longman-History Today Trustees Award 2017 and the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2017. He also wrote ‘A House Through Time’, ‘Civilisations: First Contact/The Cult of Progress’, ‘The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism’ and ‘The World’s War’, which was named the First World War Book of the Year 2015.

David has received several awards throughout his career, including the President’s Medal in 2021, the most prestigious British Academy award, for telling diverse stories from British history. He received an OBE in the New Years Honours 2019.

David has presented historical television programmes on the BBC, including recently ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History’, based on his book, and ‘Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners’, as well as ‘The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire’, ‘Namibia: Genocide and the Second Reich’, and documentary series, ‘Civilisation’, among others. He presented the 2 part series ''Finding Britain's Slave Traders with David Olusoga' on the BBC in September 2026.