October always makes me pause. Black History Month is definitely a time to celebrate, but also to reckon with where we are. This year’s theme, “Standing Firm in Power and Pride”, invites us to reflect on what it means to belong, to hold space, and to stand tall in institutions that have not always made that possible. As a postgraduate research student exploring the experiences of Black women doctoral students in higher education, I’ve been thinking about how place shapes not only opportunity but also identity. We like to think of universities as spaces that value merit and free thought, but they’re also deeply shaped by history. Their walls hold both aspiration and exclusion.
I have been thinking about how power and pride in place suggest agency within systems; it implies that one can thrive inside structures not built for them. But what happens when those very structures continually remind you that your presence is conditional? Recent years have brought visible political resistance to race-conscious work in the UK and beyond, primarily through attacks on so called “woke” agendas and the reduction of efforts aimed at making the academy more inclusive such as decolonising the curriculum. Politicians have publicly questioned the value of equity and inclusion efforts, framing them as divisive or anti-meritocratic. Within higher education, this rhetoric can have chilling effects. Scholars engaged in critical race scholarship are often framed as advocates for a cause rather than recognised for their intellectual contributions (Arday, 2022). Furthermore, sustained funding for equality initiatives also remains uncertain. Concerns about long term investment and the continuation of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) projects have led to a perception that institutional support is becoming precarious. Even spaces intended to celebrate diversity, such as Black History Month, can sometimes feel tokenistic when the broader structures remain unchanged.
In my own research with Black women doctoral students, I am continually struck by the quiet determination that defined many of their experiences. Pride, in the context of my research, was not about ego, it was about presence and the insistence on existing fully in spaces that have historically erased or diminished Black voices. It is the refusal to shrink, even when one’s legitimacy is questioned. For many, pride manifests as an act of intellectual resistance and a form of self-definition that transforms marginality into meaning.
This pride also connects deeply to community. Across the UK, Black scholars and students have built informal networks that provide both emotional support and intellectual refuge. These communities challenge the narrative of isolation by making visible the brilliance and creativity that already exist within the academy (Osho & Alormele, 2025). They also remind us that ‘place’ is not only institutional but is relational. It truly exists wherever people come together to share knowledge, joy, and solidarity. Power here is not hierarchical but collective.
At a time when higher education faces political tension, economic strain, and questions about its social purpose, Black History Month feels particularly important. Universities are being asked to defend their values while social inequalities endure. Within the sector, data show that Black academic staff remain underrepresented at senior levels, with fewer than 1% of professors in the UK identifying as Black women, roughly 350 out of 18,000 professors (HESA, 2025). These numbers are not just statistics; they are indicators of whose pride and power are recognised within our ‘places’ of learning.
To take ‘Power and Pride’ in our places of learning is to seriously move beyond symbolic celebration. It requires institutions to acknowledge how exclusion persists, not just through overt racism, but through its subtle expressions. It means valuing the knowledge that Black scholars bring, not as an add-on for diversity quotas, but as essential to understanding our shared society. To me, then Pride becomes about more than celebration, it becomes strategy. Power becomes not dominance or supremacy over one another, but collaboration. And “place” becomes something we continually co-create, brick by brick, through relationships, recognition, and meaningful restoration.
In our current climate, where things feel politically uncertain and, for many of us from racially minoritised or marginalised backgrounds, socially divided, research that centres and values people’s lived experiences within higher education feels harder to do, but also more urgent. The academy cannot remain neutral on issues of inequality. Each of us, regardless of role or background, shapes what kind of place higher education becomes. Black History Month offers a moment of visibility, but the real measure of progress, as always, lies in what happens after October ends.
Amira Samatar is a postgraduate researcher in the Sheffield Institute of Education.
References
Arday, J. (2022). ‘More to prove and more to lose’: Race, racism and precarious employment in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 43(4), 513–533. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2022.2060867
Osho, Y. I., & Alormele, N. (2025). Negotiated spaces: Black women academics’ experiences in UK universities. Higher Education, 89(5), 1387-1403.
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