By Seetha Tan PhD candidate in Sociology.
This post is part of Exploring Legacies of Enslavement: a research series, highlighting ongoing research on the legacies of enslavement.
© Kenny Monrose
On a frosty winter morning in early 2023, Dr Kenny Monrose and I took a drive through Cambridge, two cameras and two tripods in hand, to rediscover a city that was both intimately familiar, and unknown.
Rediscovering Cambridge: filmmaking as social inquiry
As filmmakers and sociologists based at the University of Cambridge, our plan was to produce a documentary film which troubled the historic town and gown divide, by showcasing the history of Black presence in Cambridge.
Anyone familiar with the city of Cambridge, will have likely come across the notion of the ‘town & gown,’ a term that captures the physical, social, and symbolic spatial divide between the local community and the University of Cambridge. Many of the students we interviewed for the film had never explored Cambridge beyond the city-centre and were unaware of the independent Black businesses on Norfolk Street or the local Black history in Chesterton. Equally, many of the local Black residents we spoke to had never been inside the University or its colleges. Our documentary, which premiered in March 2025 at the Cambridge Festival, took viewers on a journey through the University’s archives, to the first Black-owned pub in Cambridge, local Black businesses, and Black creative spaces. With its dual focus on time and space, Black Town & Gown aimed to shed light on how the past continues to shape the present through the allocation and division of space.
Uncovering histories of black presence in Cambridge
In recent years, powerful efforts to decolonise the university and colleges have uncovered stories of the first Black alumni, and the University’s links with colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. By taking viewers on a journey through the history of Black presence in the gown and the town, we wanted to build on these efforts, ensuring that the work of recovery and reckoning did not exclusively centre the gown at the expense of the town. When scoping locations for the documentary, our early research took us along Mill Road to the Devonshire Arms, formerly the Midland Tavern, the first Black owned pub in Cambridge. We visited the Equiano Bridge on Riverside before heading to St Andrew’s Church, Chesterton, where a plaque commemorates the life of Anna Maria Vassa, the daughter of the abolitionist Olaudah Equiano. The history of Equiano’s time in Cambridgeshire (between 1789 and 1796), has only recently been publicly remembered with the renaming of Riverside Bridge to Equiano Bridge and the Fitzwilliam Museum’s ‘Black Atlantic: Power, People and Resistance,’ exhibition. Equiano’s own life in Cambridge traversed town and gown, evidenced in both his connections with Abolitionist activists in the University and his family life beyond.
“Riverside, a sculler and the Equiano Bridge” by John Sutton Licensed under CC BY‑SA 2.0 Source: Geograph Britain and Ireland.
The Equiano Family Project, based at St Andrews Church, has commissioned a new stained-glass window for the Church, recognising the family’s historical contribution to the Chesterton community. Local artist, Selena Scott, who co-founded Cambridge Black Creatives, was awarded the commission. Her design features three panels, the first panel features a portrait of Equiano, the last, a portrait of his wife, a local white woman, Susannah Cullen. The central panel depicts their two daughters, Anna Maria and Joanna, placing them ‘at the heart of the design, symbolising future generations.’ At the top of the panel above a broken chain, Scott places the Sankofa, a West African symbol that ‘teaches the importance of learning from the past to shape the future.’
While the documentary does not specifically explore the development of the stained glass window, Selena Scott is one of the voices we foreground in our documentary film, Black Town & Gown (2025). Her work as both an artist and co-founder of the Cambridge Black Creatives speaks to the importance of shared spaces, supporting local community and connecting the legacies of the past to the needs of communities in the present.
© Kenny Monrose
Learning from the past, shaping the future
The intervention the film makes to the rich and important work already happening in the University, is to examine how the history of Black presence in Cambridge connects to the local Black community today. The film concludes with community recommendations, reflecting on different initiatives that could overcome the town and gown divide. Like the message behind Selena’s proposed stained glass design, it functions as reminder that ‘learning from the past’ is inextricably connected to actively shaping the present and the future.
About the author
Seetha Tan is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust. Her research examines the role of storytelling on identity-formation within the context of postcolonial migration to London.
References
Avery, V. (2025). Celebrating Equiano’s Cambridge Connections. University of Cambridge Museums Blog. Accessed 25 February 2026.
Hyam, R. (n.d.). Peckard, Equiano and the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Magdalene College Library News. Accessed 25 February 2026.
St Andrew’s Church Chesterton. (2025). Equiano Family Window Project Update. Accessed 25 February 2026.