Roedean’s annual Black History Month lecture was delivered by Carolynn Bain this week, and it fitted the national theme, ‘Reclaiming Narratives’, perfectly – as the founder of a bookshop in Brighton which champions the works of Black authors, it also complemented the School’s activities this week to celebrate Book Week! Carolynn spoke in the Theatre to the Sixth Form and our Roedean Academy partner students from four local state schools, and the rest of the school body enjoyed the lecture live-streamed to their classrooms.

Carolynn’s lecture centred on telling stories, and, with a pile of books beside her, each was the stimulus for a different story. When she was growing up, Carolynn was unable to find any books with characters which represented her appearance or experiences. During Covid, this inspired her to open an online bookshop, even though she had no experience of running a shop, nor of marketing books, nor of creating a website! Despite her lack of experience, her online shop served a purpose and was successful, and this led her to open a physical shop near Brighton Station, and it is called ‘Afrori – Books of Black Origin’.

Afrori is unique. It is the only bookshop in the UK which specialises in Black authors, and, for Carolynn, this is because of the importance of representation. She works to a three-point plan: supporting Black authors, creating diverse bookshelves, and standing up against injustice. And she relishes a challenge. To open her physical bookshop, she had to raise £10,000 in a month. But this money was raised in just ten days, and this made her realise that people wanted her shop to exist, because it filled a void.

One of the stories she told to illustrate the lack of Black representation in books was about a six-year-old boy she met at a book event and a Spider-Man graphic novel. In graphic novels, non-white characters are very rare, but this little boy pointed to Miles Morales and said to his Mum, ‘This superhero looks like me!’ At that point, Carolynn said that she realised that what she is doing is working – that child finally saw himself as a super-hero, for the first time.

The audience was challenged to change the narratives around us. Inspiring, thought-provoking, inclusive, and totally engaging – Carolynn was a brilliant Black History Month speaker!