Historian and broadcaster David
Olusoga, who was brought up in Gateshead, has been honoured by Northumbria
University, Newcastle.
David has produced and presented
documentaries for more than 20 years, including Black & British: A
Forgotten History, The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire, and the BAFTA
award-winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. He also co-presented the new
series remake of Kenneth Clark's 1969
programme Civilisations, alongside historians Mary
Beard and Simon Schama, the most significant BBC cultural programme
this decade.
Most recently David presented two
series of A House Through Time on BBC 2, exploring 180
years of British life by focusing on the varied inhabitants of two terraced
houses, one in Liverpool the other in Newcastle.
David is also a celebrated author; his
2016 book Black & British was awarded the Longman-History Today Trustees
Award and the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. He writes regularly for The Guardian,
The Observer and the BBC History Magazine.
Born in Nigeria David spent his childhood growing
up in Gateshead.
“I was brought up on Tyneside,
so to be honoured by Northumbria University is special,” said David. “This
University is helping Newcastle tell its story, in a more global and dynamic
way than we sometimes remember. This is a port city and we often convince
ourselves that we are somehow isolated, but this is a global-facing city that
has always been diverse and uniquely creative. Northumbria is successfully
telling the bigger story of Newcastle.
“We have just finished filming
the second series of A House Through Time here in Newcastle, which will be aired on BBC 2 in the spring next year. When
the show’s producers asked me where I wanted to film, I immediately said
Newcastle because I wanted to go home and tell the story of the city that
matters to me the most.”
After graduating from the University
of Liverpool, David became a radio and television producer. After this he became
a television presenter. David’s other books include The World’s War, which won First
World War Book of the Year in 2015, and The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial
Roots of Nazism.
The TV presenter and executive
producer gave support for a major Arts
and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) bid offering his time to create a
documentary around the 19th century abolitionist Richardson family
from Summerfield Grove, in Newcastle.
Quakers
Henry and Anna Richardson devoted their time to the anti-slavery fight. They
supported civil rights campaigner Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery
on an American plantation and became famous in the 19th Century in the fight
for civil rights, opening up their home to him. The forward-thinking pair also
supported the boycotting of goods produced as a result of slave labour. Anna,
who died in March 1892 and was buried in nearby Elswick cemetery, fund-raised
with her sister-in-law Ellen to legally free Frederick Douglas from slavery on
December 5, 1846.
Frederick
Douglass was one of the most famous African Americans of the 19th century and with the support of Northumbria Professors David Gleeson and Brian
Ward, there is now an effort to erect a statue to him in Newcastle.
