{"id":3408,"date":"2026-10-22T09:29:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T08:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/?p=3408"},"modified":"2026-10-22T09:29:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T08:29:26","slug":"see-my-world-and-the-pan-african-legacies-heritage-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/2026\/10\/22\/see-my-world-and-the-pan-african-legacies-heritage-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"See My World and the Pan-African Legacies Heritage Trail\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Woven deep into Manchester\u2019s tapestry is a vibrant thread of Black history, so rich and far-reaching that its light transcends the confines of these borders. It is a history that stretches across continents, connecting people, ideas and movements. From this history, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bigpeoplemusic.co.uk\/community\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">See My World<\/a> was born, a year-round programme of Pan African experiences that began in 2020 with a goal to inspire a movement rooted in self-determination and self-realisation for Pan African and Global Majority communities in Manchester and across the UK.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Along Oxford Road and through the streets of Manchester, traces of this history remain. Buildings, meeting places and landmarks become points of entry into stories that stretch far beyond where these buildings stand.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year, with funding from the SALC Social Responsibility; Cultural Engagement Award and others, <em>See My World<\/em> set out to document and preserve some of these histories, creating the Pan-African Legacies Heritage Trail and transforming the streets of Manchester into a living archive of the city\u2019s role in the evolution of Pan-Africanism.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Launched on <strong>Friday 12 June<\/strong> with a one-time guided walk led by local historian Linford Sweeney, the trail maps seventeen sites across Manchester, from well-known landmarks to the structural pillars of community life, whose roles in history have been much quieter\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thirty-seven people from all walks of life joined Sweeney to walk the trail and learn more about the places woven into it. Among them was the Grosvenor East Building, formerly Chorlton-upon-Medlock Town Hall, where the Fifth Pan-African Congress was held in 1945, bringing together some of the most important voices in the struggle for African liberation. The route also took in the Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia Centre and the West Indian Sports and Social Club.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But preserving a shared history begins with recognising the value of the stories held within it. The big stories we remember are made up of countless smaller ones, some loud, some quiet, some that have been carried for generations without ever being written down. Like pieces of a mosaic, each one helps form a picture much bigger than itself. To preserve that picture, we first have to recognise the value of the pieces we carry.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Therefore, before launching the heritage trail, <em>See My World<\/em> began this work through three community working sessions. The sessions gave participants the tools to understand their connection to this history, from exploring oral history and the fundamentals of archiving, to engaging with Pan-African archival collections and learning how to document their own memories and materials.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In doing so, a space was created for people to recognise their role in preserving the history that came before them, while learning how to hold onto the stories that will continue to unfold through their own lives. From this understanding, the Pan-African Legacies Heritage Trail began to take shape.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s important to recognise the people who came before us,\u201d says Sweeney. Black history is not monolithic. These community centres, organisations and spaces mapped out in this trail exist because of the people who came before us, who fought for funding, built institutions and created places for their communities to gather and thrive.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That spirit of reflection continued beyond the walk. Led by Stefanie Reynolds, the group was invited to sit with the histories they had encountered, the lives that had been shared and the energy held within each site. It was a chance not simply to learn the history, but to reflect on what it means to inherit it.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although this session was a one-time experience, the trail is here to stay. For anyone who wants to follow the route, the map is available to <a href=\"https:\/\/seemyworld.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">download<\/a>. Whether walking alone, with friends, as a group or as a team, the trail offers another way to encounter Manchester, one story and one site at a time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Woven deep into Manchester\u2019s tapestry is a vibrant thread of Black history, so rich and far-reaching that its light transcends the confines of these borders. It is a history that stretches across continents, connecting people, ideas and movements. From this history, See My World was born, a year-round programme of Pan African experiences that began [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6791,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,41,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equality-and-diversity","category-history","category-social-responsibility-category"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6791"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3410,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3408\/revisions\/3410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.manchester.ac.uk\/salc-making-a-difference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}