For Black History Month 2026, Join Newman SU for our lecture by Dr Dean Clay, Co-Programme Lead for History at Newman!
The Forgotten Black Voices of the Congo Reform Movement
Between 1885 and 1908, Leopold II’s Congo Free State was built on forced labour and violence. Accounts of the international campaign against these abuses often centre on European and American reformers. This talk brings into view the Black witnesses and activists whose contributions are less visible in popular histories: from Herzekiah Andrew Shanu, a Yoruba official in Boma, to African American writers, journalists and missionary networks, and the accounts of African women. It explores how they helped expose abuses, and whose testimony was heard, mediated or trusted.
Bio
Dean Clay is Co-Programme Lead for History and Senior Lecturer in History at Birmingham Newman University, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Wilberforce Institute. His research explores activism and its relationship to power, particularly humanitarianism, race and empire. His work has appeared in the Journal of American Studies, History, and the International History Review, as well as public outlets including Africa Is a Country and The Brussels Times. His forthcoming book, Bringing Light into the Heart of Darkness: The Congo Question, Moral Diplomacy, and Anglo-American Relations, 1885-1909, examines how the American Congo Reform Association turned civic and religious activism into a form of US moral diplomacy, shaping American engagement with the Congo while exposing the racial and imperial contradictions behind claims to moral leadership.