Black History Month 2025 is celebrating Black Individuals as leaders, activists, and pioneers who have shaped history through the theme Standing Firm in Power and Pride.
Liverpool is a city in which Black culture and history thrive all year round. Here at the Guild, we want to shed light on the individuals with Black heritage in this city who have shaped the city’s history.
Dr Gee Walker, MBE
Twenty years ago, in July 2005, Black British student Anthony Walker was murdered in Huyton, Merseyside.
Following his tragic death, the Anthony Walker Foundation, set up in 2006 by Walker's mother, Dr Gee Walker, whose aim is to tackle racism, hate crimes, and discrimination by providing educational opportunities and victim support, and also promoting equality and inclusion for all.
Walker has devoted her life to tackling racism in her son's memory and has received a Pride of Britain Award for the foundation's work and an MBE for services to diversity and racial injustice.
Eric Lynch
Eric Lynch was born in Liverpool in 1932 to parents of Barbadian heritage
He became an educator and fighter for Black and working-class communities. He began the Liverpool Slavery Tours in the 1980s, taking groups of school children, adults, students, and visitors around the city to explain Liverpool's ties to the slave trade.
He gave lectures about Liverpool and slavery globally, at universities in America, the Caribbean and in Ghana, where he was also made an honorary African chief. In 2017, he was awarded the Citizen of Honour by Liverpool City Council, and he was also awarded a gold medal from the Transport and General Workers Union for his union activities.
Eric passed away in November 2021 at the age of 89.
Dorothy Kuya
Dorothy Kuya was a Black British human rights activist born in Toxteth, Liverpool.
She moved to London to train as a nurse and a teacher, and was a co-founder of Teachers Against Racism. She was an active member of the National Assembly of Women and ensured anti-racism activism was at the forefront of their campaigns.
On her return to Liverpool, she led the campaign to open Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum in 2007, credited for spearheading the city’s first Slavery Remembrance Day in 1999.
In 2021, the University of Liverpool’s Hall, formerly known as “Gladstone Hall”, was renamed after Dorothy Kuya.
Emma Clarke
Born in Bootle in 1875, Emma Clarke was the first Black British female footballer. She made her debut in the British Ladies team in 1895 in London for a crowd of 11,000.
There was a significant amount of media coverage of Clarke at the time. she featured in photos and illustrations, and match reports. Her career as a footballer is recorded to have continued until at least 1903.
In 2017, her story was turned into a play, “Offside,” by the Futures Theatre, which toured across the country.
Clarke’s story is important in highlighting that not only women, but women from minority backgrounds have been part of football for a very long time. It isn’t just a recent phenomenon.
Howard Gayle
In 1977, Gayle became the first Black Footballer to sign a professional contract with Liverpool FC.
Since retiring from football, he has become an anti-racism campaigner and works with the charity Show Racism the Red Card to tackle racism within football and beyond.