University projects engaging with Black students

Student, past and present,  have initiated or been engaged in a number of projects that involve, impact or are relevant to Black student experiences at the University of Cambridge.  This page collate a few of these institutional projects. Please get in touch with any other suggestions for projects or opportunities for engagement that might be of interest to current students.  This page was initially designed by Fabianna Dennis (student research assistant). 

George Bridgetower Essay

This annual essay prize is supported by the Alexander Crummell Fund, which was initiated to support anti-racist work across the University of Cambridge, and funded through philanthropic donors including Henry Louis Gates Jr.  The prize itself was named after George Bridgetower, who studied at Trinity Hall and was awarded a music degree in 1811.  The essay theme is set each year on a topic relating closely to race and Black student experiences at Cambridge, with a prize of £1000. The essays provide a forum for students to share their insights into historical and contemporary experiences of race at Cambridge. 

• The 2023 prize was awarded to Antoni a Antrobus-Higgins, a second year HSPS student (Murray Edwards).  You can read her winning essay here (Raven password required), in response to the essay question: 
  • As suggested by the Legacies of Enslavement Report, "intellectual and scientific justification for racism, including those developed at Cambridge, have long played a significant role in underpinning and supporting everyday racist assumptions of racial inequality and particularly of Black inferiority."  To what extent does Cambridge, as an academic institution, challenge the myth of Black inferiority?

• The 2022 prize was awarded to Maya McFarlane, a third year HSPS student (Pembroke). Check out our own interview with her here:  'In conversation' interview with Maya and Fabianna. You can find her winning essay here (Raven password required), written in response to the essay question: 
  • Cambridge prides itself on being a “globally diverse institution” at the forefront of social and political progress. Since Crummell’s graduation, to what extent has the University of Cambridge changed as a space for Black students, and as an institution responsible for transformation?

End Everyday Racism

This initiative is an independent research project launched in 2020 by staff in the Department of Sociology,  University of Cambridge. The project aimed to develop our understanding of everyday racism with numeric, descriptive and geographic evidence, in order to build a collective case to support antiracism advocacy and social justice activism at the University and further afield (read more in Varsity). One of the primary aims of the End Everyday Racism campaign was to produce reports that support antiracist advocacy and build a collective case for change in Cambridge. Their first report summarises 117 incidences of racism between Oct 2018 and Oct 2020. In the words of Dr Mónica Moreno Figueroa: "All of us can take this report and use it to move the agenda forwards".