CELEBRATING THE PAN AFRICAN CONGRESS 80th ANNIVERSARY

Join the Portico Library to mark the 80th anniversary of the October 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester, a landmark gathering that reshaped the global fight for Black liberation and independence.

Trustee Esther Lisk-Carew will interview Zodwa Nyoni, a Zimbabwean-born playwright, screenwriter, director and lecturer at MMU and the writer of the play Liberation which debuted at the Royal Exchange Theatre in July 2025.

Timings to be added soon.

The original exhibition at the Royal Exchange was curated by a team of staff and student researchers associated with the Race, Roots & Resistance Collective’s Emerging Scholars programme at the University of Manchester mid-June to July. It brought together archive material, photographs and audio recordings that honour the legacy of the Congress and the radical ideas it ignited.

The display will weave in personal interpretation from the Portico Library’s own African diaspora with contributions from Trustees Esther Lisk-Carew and Kevin Dalton-Johnson, Creative Producer Dr Debbie Challis and first-time curator and Chair of the Portico Public Programme Committee, Carol Ann Whitehead FRSA, CMgr CCMI. There will be books from the Portico’s historic collection, alongside new books, that speak to themes of imperialism and the fight for independence.

This free exhibition invites you to explore how the spirit of resistance, creativity, and solidarity that defined the Congress still inspires global movements today.