Throughout October we brought to you a selection of films, documentaries, and radio programs available through Box of Broadcasts (BoB) to celebrate Black History Month with a daily Tweet from the @ccculibrary Twitter. We are now making all our suggested resources accessible 365 days of the year through our Black History 365 playlist, accessible through BoB.

But what is Box of Broadcasts?

Box of Broadcasts, or BoB for short, is an online, on Demand TV and radio service for education. BoB’s academically-focused system allows staff and students, at subscribing institutions, to record programmes from over 75 free-to-air channels; and search their archive of over 2.2 million broadcasts. BoB automatically records all the programmes from the nine most popular channels, you can also ask BoB to record from over 50 other free-to-air channels, so if you know something is coming up which you want to see, just request it in advance!

To find out more about how to use Box of Broadcasts read our two part blog, starting with part one.

Now Let’s take a look at the highlights of what you could be watching or listening to right now…

Black and British: A Forgotten History

Black and British: A Forgotten History is a four-part BBC Television documentary series, written and presented by David Olusoga and first broadcast in November 2016. It documents the history of Black people in Great Britain and its colonies, starting with those who arrived as part of the Roman occupation, and relates that history to modern Black British identity.

You can watch all four episodes in our playlist compiled here.

Windrush (1998)

Windrush is a four-part series of one-hour television documentaries originally broadcast on BBC2 in 1998 to mark the 50th anniversary of the arrival in Britain of the MV Empire Windrush, the ship that brought the first significant wave of post-war West Indian immigrants. Contributors include Lenny Henry, Jazzy B, Doreen Lawrence, Valerie Amos, Rosalind Howells, Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Ben Bousquet, Carroll Thompson, Charlie Williams, Cy Grant, Professor Stuart Hall, Ken Livingstone, Darcus Howe, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Columbus Deniston, Ulric Cross, Chris Blackwell, Mike Phillips. It won the 1999 Royal Television Society Award for Best Documentary Series.

You can watch all four episodes in our playlist compiled here.

A selection of great black British cinema

On the playlist you’ll find plenty of black British cinema highlights; from Babylon (1980) the first major British feature film to take reggae music as its central theme to Belle (2013) exploring the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle and her campaign to end slavery. You could try seminal playwright debbie tucker green’s directorial film debut Second Coming (2014) or the absorbing drama Babymother (1998). You could also watch the full season of Random Acts: Black History Month for a collection of exciting new films from cutting-edge black filmmakers.

You’ll find these films and more on our main playlist
You can find all six episodes of Random Acts compiled on our playlist here

Teaching black history in schools

Looking into introducing Black British History in a primary school setting? Primary History: Black History – Black Britons is a programme for seven- to eleven-year-olds. An introduction to the history of black people in Britain, from the Romans to the slave trade. The programme features a mixture of presenter links on location and drama sequences about historical figures from the past. We meet John Blanke, a trumpeter in King Henry VIII’s court, Ignatius Sancho, an 18th-century black cultural figure and ’man about town’, Sake Deen Mahomed, ’shampooing surgeon’ to King George IV in early 19th-century Brighton, and Mary Prince, an ex-slave who came to Britain and published her life story. You can also access to the Black History Month episode of Horrible Histories.

You can watch both episodes of Primary History compiled on our playlist here

Just fifteen minutes a day…

Looking for something more bitesize? The 15 minute episodes of Britain’s Black Past sees Professor Gretchen Gerzina explores a largely unknown past, the lives of black people who settled in Britain in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Listen to all ten episodes on our compiled playlist here

And so much more…

Nurses, musicians, authors, civil rights campaigners there is so much rich history to explore through Box of Broadcasts. Start by visiting our Black History 365 playlist and then explore on your own. Why not create your own playlist and share it with your friends? Or if you want to recommend something for our playlist let us know in the comments below!

Box of Broadcasts is part of Your Digital Library.