Producer and broadcaster David Olusoga is to receive the President’s Medal from the British Academy in recognition of his inclusive approach to history.
The Academy, which represents the humanities and social sciences, said it was recognising the Uplands TV founder for producing and presenting TV shows such as BBC2's A House Through Time and Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners and for writing books such as Black and British.
He has also executive produced Uplands shows Channel 5’s 100 Years a Slave and ITV’s Ashley Banjo: Britain in Black and White.
The Academy praised Olusoga for “championing inclusive approaches to British and international history by presenting diverse stories from Britain’s past and engaging a wide range of people on the important issue of how we understand our collective histories.”
The historian and Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester received an OBE in 2019 for services to history and community integration and exposed the structural inequalities hindering inclusion in his MacTaggart speech at the 2020 Edinburgh TV Festival.
Olusoga will receive the medal at the Academy's awards ceremony on 12 May, when he will be in conversation with its president, Professor Julia Black.
Introduced in 2010, the President’s Medal is the Academy’s highest honour. Previous winners include author Margaret Atwood, former Channel 4 and BBC News presenter Zeinab Badawi and the late writer and broadcaster Clive James.
