Making History Oxford website is now live!

Making History Oxford poster

Making History: Christian Cole, Alain Locke and Oscar Wilde at Oxford tells the story of three nineteenth and twentieth century trailblazers who changed Oxford University and the world beyond it. Christian Cole was one of Oxford University’s first Black African undergraduates, Alain Locke was the first African-American Rhodes scholar and dean of the Harlem Renaissance, and Oscar Wilde was the greatest Irish wit and dandy of all time. 

By drawing these three exceptional men together, this exhibition showcases Black and Queer undergraduates’ shared histories through rare archives that bear witness to their remarkable lives and times. 

This exhibition and website are based on Michèle Mendelssohn’s biography, Making Oscar Wilde. It was a Sunday Times, Times Literary Supplement and The Advocate Book of the Year, a semi-finalist for the PEN America Biography Prize, and a finalist for the Polari Prize.

Explore the Making History Oxford website