Reframing the Past in a Royal Space: Professor Hakim Adi at the Royal Pavilion

In a room designed to celebrate royal fantasy and imperial spectacle, a different kind of history was spoken – rooted not in conquest, but in truth. On a recent evening in Brighton, Professor Hakim Adi delivered a powerful talk in the Royal Pavilion’s Music Room. His subject: African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History.

The Music Room is an opulent, theatrical space. Built for George IV (then the Prince of Wales) in the early 19th century, it was designed to impress, its aesthetic built on fantasies of the East and financed through Britain’s expanding empire. But it is also a space that tells us as much through its silences as through its style. For much of its history, rooms like this one have celebrated narratives of wealth, monarchy, and colonial power, while omitting or distorting the experiences of those exploited to build it.

So to hear Professor Adi speak in this room in May 2025 was more than an event. It was a corrective, and a quiet, transformation.

Recentering the Story

Hakim Adi is one of the most important historians working in Britain today. As the first African-British professor of history in the UK, he has long challenged the absence of African and Caribbean people from the national story. His work is not about ‘adding in’ marginal perspectives. It is about recentering the historical narrative to reflect Britain as it really was and is.

In his talk, Professor Adi walked us through more than ten thousand years of history. From ‘Cheddar Man’ to Black presence in Tudor courts, to abolitionists and activists, he showed that Black history is not an appendix to British history. It is foundational to it.

This message – though grounded in fact and scholarship – remains radical in spaces where Britain’s past has too often been told through narrow, privileged lenses. And that’s precisely what made the evening so significant.

Decolonising the Gilded Frame

Professor Adi has spoken candidly about his reservations with the word decolonising. He has warned that it can be used vaguely, or in ways disconnected from the changes that true justice demands. This is a crucial reminder, particularly for museums and heritage institutions, which have often consciously and unconsciously adopted the language of decolonisation without addressing the deeper structures of power that shape whose stories are told, and by whom, whose objects are collected, and whose lives are celebrated.

In the Culture Change team at Brighton & Hove Museums, we use the term decolonising as a commitment to ongoing work. Work that questions traditional narratives, is undertaken by historically excluded people and communities, and invites deeper accountability for the colonial legacies embedded in our collections, buildings, and institutional cultures.

Professor Adi’s talk was not just an opportunity to learn, it was an opportunity to reflect critically on the stories we have traditionally told, and also those we have left out.

Community, Scholarship, and Celebration

After the talk, Professor Adi signed copies of his books, which were made available by Afrori Books, Brighton’s Black-owned bookshop dedicated to promoting books by Black authors. Afrori’s founder and CEO, Carolynn Bain, had just been named Independent Book Seller of the Year for the second time – a major recognition of her leadership and her role in building an inclusive literary community.

The presence of Afrori Books was more than symbolic. It represented a living, Black-led cultural infrastructure: scholarship, authorship, enterprise and community engagement – all driven by people whose stories have long been marginalised in traditional British heritage spaces. It was a moment where multiple forms of Black excellence – academic, cultural, entrepreneurial – were in the same space, and fully centred.

A Room Transformed

The Music Room has long hosted important figures including composers like Rossini, and writers like Dickens and Wilde. But Professor Adi’s presence marked a turning point of a different kind.

For many in the audience, the event was not just informative, it was deeply moving. It offered a glimpse of what museum spaces can become when they open themselves up, when they allow the past to be told not only by those who commissioned palaces, but also by those whose stories were kept out of them.

Moving Forward with Responsibility

We are profoundly grateful to Professor Hakim Adi for his scholarship, generosity and clarity. His talk challenged all of us working in museums, education and culture to keep asking hard questions. Who gets to tell the story? Whose history is being preserved? And what does it take to truly shift the frame?

Brighton & Hove Museums’ Culture Change programme exists to support this process – to rethink our spaces, examine our histories, and make room for new voices, perspectives and truths. But this work cannot be done alone. It must be grounded in the knowledge of those who have long been calling for change. And it must be led by the communities whose histories have been left out for too long.

To explore Professor Adi’s written works or to purchase African and Caribbean People in Britain: A History, please visit Afrori Books.