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About Us

History Matters stage

The Young Historians Project (YHP) is a UK–based research collective that promotes the scholarship and popular understanding of Black history in Britain. YHP produces public history projects to collect, preserve, and share the histories of communities that have been hidden, overlooked, or marginalised. Inspired by the proverb ‘each one, teach one’, our work centres community engagement, education, and accessibility. Our projects involve archival research, oral history interviews, documentary film-making, exhibition curation, schools outreach, murals, and more. YHP is a non-profit initiative, meaning we rely on grants and external funding to do our work. We are made up of volunteers, with support from project coordinators and our consultant historian, Professor Hakim Adi.​

YHP was formed to encourage the development of young people of African and Caribbean heritage into historians. Our public history projects provide young people the space to grow as researchers, writers, editors, public speakers, creatives, and more. We hope to support diverse communities in rediscovering history and developing the skills to become the historians of the future. Learn more about our work from a summary of our projects. Please contact us with any queries.

Origins of YHP

YHP was founded by Hakim Adi and the late Cheryl Phillips in 2015, following a History Matters conference. The conference, held at the Institute of Historical Research, aimed to address the low numbers of Black history students, teachers, and academics in Britain. It was held in collaboration with the Black Cultural Archives, the Royal Historical Society, and the Historical Association. Attendees shared ideas on ways to encourage young people of diverse backgrounds to engage with history and historical research. This led to the formation of YHP, with the founding members being two History students present at the conference. Details on YHP's beginnings can be found in our blog. 

"I saw that they were collectively thinking about what could be done to challenge the status quo and I wanted to be part of this work."

Aleja

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Community

YHP aims to be a positive and welcoming community of historians and researchers

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Collaboration

Teamwork and open discussion are essential to our research and project development

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Public Engagement

Our projects encourage the public to engage with underrepresented histories

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Empowerment

We hope to empower our communities with knowledge and foster an appreciation for Black British history in the public

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Inclusion

YHP welcomes all marginalised groups to our membership

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Respect

YHP strives to foster an environment of mutual respect and fairness in which everyone's ideas are heard

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