Where has BHM gone?

Last Sunday was quite significant for me (and maybe George) in ways those from Afro-Caribbean backgrounds will understand – because it was the first time our Nigerian Auntie met both of our girlfriends.

It goes without saying that this Auntie is figurative in title but literal in every other sense. One of our dad's oldest friends, she's the sort of person who knows everything going on in our lives before we've walked through the door owing to the sheer amount of communication between them. We're talking hours on the phone together; drop calling in Nigerian culture is completely normalised, so a Thursday evening in front of the TV can fast become a 3-hour catch-up.

She's also one of the people I owe much of my understanding of Nigerian culture to. I use her Jollof recipe. I've stayed at her home in Lagos. I've had many a conversation about how Nigeria is "honestly, absolutely fine". And I've had far deeper, extended discussions about what it means to be a mixed-race Nigerian raised in Reigate with her.

As I travelled home across London, it dawned on me that, as a shared experience, this might be the best thing I do this Black History Month. Which is surreal. Not just because my personal calendar is so busy, but because brands seem to be showing up even less this year than last, and that trend has been heading down since Covid. In 2021, around 100 global brands posted about Black History Month on Twitter. By 2025, only two of them did on X.¹ Granted, that's US data, but anyone who has opened Instagram this October will recognise the picture here too.

It would be easy to say this is because there's no commercial interest, or Black culture isn't flavour of the month, or people are scared of the consequences. But that isn't strictly true. Brands haven't stopped picking sides. American Eagle stood by its "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans" campaign through accusations of eugenics overtones, and this year it increased its Pride spend. The truth is simpler and more damning: when it comes to Black culture, brands don't need to care anymore.

When it comes to Black culture, brands don't need to care anymore.

And they don't need to care because the cover is no longer required. Online and offline discourse is now so polarised and so extreme that attention is elsewhere, and the pressure on brands to take a stance has gone. It's not just BHM. Pride sponsorships fell again this year, and brand mentions of Pride on social media dropped 92% in two years.² We are (back) in an era where silence is safer – even when the athletes and people these brands rely on so heavily are prepared to speak out, such as Amy Hunt last month in response to Sydney Sweeney's gambling advert, or Ian Wright on the treatment of black footballers.

All of this is happening while brands need to be culturally relevant more than ever, and much of that relevance is borrowed from Black culture. Last month, Nike took over Shoreditch for the London final of Toma Own The Cage: 400+ young players, eight grassroots partners, and Okocha, Mainoo and Lauren James all in attendance. Cage football is as close to a London Black cultural institution as it gets. Nike has built a whole running presence around London run crews. And six weeks before October, 1.5 million people went to Notting Hill Carnival for its 60th anniversary, an event worth an estimated £400m to London.³ So what does it say about where we are that brands are happy to do one but not the other?

Maybe it's all happening behind closed doors. Since 2025, some of the biggest companies in the world have moved their BHM activity into employee programmes. That means celebrating internally and cutting out the community, literally. Or maybe they're not shouting about it and are genuinely supporting Black communities. If so, hats off, and I'd love to be shown where.

Three years ago, George and I designed a BHM Soulstice FC shirt with "Black. History. 365" on the outside collar, because Black history is an all-year-round idea that shouldn't be confined to one month. That's also what young audiences want: 58% of UK Gen Z want brands to work with Black creators year-round, compared with 39% who want a BHM post.⁴

We've been here before, asking brands how/where they're engaging with black culture all year round. So the question now is: what's happened? Why are you not anymore, to the point that the poster month doesn't even warrant attention?

I'm fortunate that Black history is a 365-day experience for me because of my heritage. I'm unfortunate in that it means I spend more time than most reflecting on what brands do for Black culture. These questions are quickly becoming as old as time, which tells us nobody has worked out how to answer them in a way that's meaningfully sustainable. All I know is that we shouldn't give up trying, and we shouldn't let brands (or each other) off the hook. Maybe it's about keeping it simple: what is one thing I'll commit to understanding between now and next year, and what will I do with that understanding? For me, it's mastering Egusi and cooking it for my Auntie.