In recent years, Olivette Otele, Britain’s first Black female history professor and the author of “African Europeans: An Untold History,” has seen a shift in how the Black experience is included in British and European history, which she credits in part to Olusoga. The program ultimately led to a public apology from Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government. The show, presented by David Lammy, a Black Member of Parliament, brought to public consciousness that African and Asian soldiers who died in World War I were not commemorated in the same way as their white comrades, and many lie in unmarked graves. This is also evident in the impact of “Unremembered,” a 2019 documentary that was made by his production company, Uplands Television. “He has a real gift for telling stories straight and winning people to seeing things in a different way. “That is the Olusoga effect,” said Beard, who is another one of Britain’s best-known historians. She remembered that, when filming “Black and British” with Olusoga in a rural English village, an older white woman said she was “proud” to know that one of the earliest inhabitants of her village had been Black after being presented with a reconstruction of that ancient woman’s face. In an email, Mary Beard, the author of “Women and Power” and a professor of classics at Cambridge University, praised Olusoga’s skills of persuasion. In 2019, Olusoga was awarded an Order of the British Empire for services to history and community integration ( which he struggled to accept because of its association with the violent acts of the empire). He’s now a fixture on British screens presenting shows like “A House Through Time,” which each season tells the story of a British house and its inhabitants over the centuries. “I chose very deliberately to leave universities and go into television in order to make history.”Īfter 15 years in TV production, he started appearing in front of the camera. For Olusoga, “history was naturally public,” he said. He studied history at university but opted for a career in TV over academia.

Olusoga’s “Black and British: A Forgotten History” explores the long and fraught relationship between Black people and Britain.ĭespite having a difficult time in school - Olusoga was diagnosed with dyslexia at age 14 - there he developed a love of history from a favorite teacher and the television he watched.

Black and british by david olusoga