On 15th October as part of Black History Month, the grassroots organiser Lady Phyll spoke to students at the University of Birmingham. The event was a collaboration between the LGBT Association and the Women and Nonbinary Association. 

Lady Phyll is the campaigner and organiser who co-founded UK Black Pride in 2005. UK Black Pride celebrates black LGBT people, including at the annual UK Black Pride Festival held in London every July.

Lady Phyll is also the executive director of the Kaleidoscope Trust, which works to uphold the rights of LGBT people around the world.

The talk focused on intersectionality in activism. This means acknowledging the way oppression overlaps for different marginalised groups, for example, black women who experience both racism and sexism. 

To demonstrate the way intersectionality is important to activism, Lady Phyll talked about how UK Black Pride consults different black LGBT communities to make the festival as inclusive and accessible as possible. In particular, she mentioned an incident a few years ago when UK Black Pride was approached by a group of black transgender people saying they were going to stop attending. UK Black Pride then worked with this group to make UK Black Pride safer for trans people. 

Lady Phyll also talked about her life and why she set up UK Black Pride. She founded UK Black Pride after a meeting with the organisers of London Pride in 2005, where she was told to ‘go back where you came from’ after suggesting her idea for an event dedicated to black LGBT people. The festival and organisation has grown year on year with around 210 people attending the first UK Black Pride Festival in 2006 and 10,000 attending this year’s celebration. 

She also talked about her decision to reject an MBE after it was offered to her a few years ago. She rejected the MBE because it stands for ‘Member of the British Empire’ and she did not want to be the recipient of an award that still represents Britain’s colonial past. 

Molly, a first-year studying Computer Science, said that ‘the Lady Phyll talk was incredible.

‘It was very informative about intersectionality and how there are a lot of issues LGBTQ+ PoC face that I haven’t witnessed as being prevalent or as talked about in less diverse spaces.’ 

Camille, a first-year studying Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences, commented ‘I love her work and everything she has done for our community, as a young queer person of colour, it is inspiring and empowering to have people like Lady Phyll as a role model.’ 

There are lots of other Black History Month events taking place on campus during October. One event is called Soul Food and Music on the 25th of October underground in the Guild of Students, featuring black music artists and free food from local businesses.