JMS Network with Professor William Lez Henry
Professor in Sociology and Criminology as well as writer, poet and community activist, Lez Henry joins us for the JMS Network event series.
JMS Network
Date: Thursday 26 March 2026
Time: 18:00 - 20:00
Venue: Kelvin Hall
Category: Public lectures, Social events, Academic events, Student events
Speaker: Professor William Lez Henry
We are delighted to welcome Professor William Lez Henry to our JMS Network Series.
The JMS Network is a programme of monthly events centring the Black academic experience and the pursuit of knowledge. It serves as a platform to facilitate discussion and to bridge networks outwith the academic landscape. The overall aim of the JMS Network is to create a protected space where curious minds can engage with experts and extend their communities to people from various fields.
Professor William Lez Henry (PhD) was born in the London borough of Lewisham and is of Jamaican Parentage. He is the British Reggae Deejay Lezlee Lyrix and is a writer, poet and community activist, renowned as a first-rate public speaker. He is a former Professor of Criminology and Sociology at University of West London (UWL) and was the creator of UWL’s MA in Global Black Studies, Decolonisation and Social Justice. The degree was unique in its approach as it focused on the wider contributions of the African diaspora, thereby familiarising students with the liberatory ideas of some of the key colonial and post-colonial thinkers, making known the interconnections between ‘Western’ hegemonic histories and the invention of 'whiteness'.
Prof Henry lectures in the areas of criminology, sociology, social anthropology, black history, whiteness studies, race, education, ethnicity, class, gender, youth justice and cultural studies. He has authored several journal articles, books, and chapters in books and has written and published extensively, on many of the concerns of the African / Black Diaspora in the UK and beyond. Moreover, he delivers educational programmes in community and grass-roots settings, as well as in universities, schools and colleges, specialising in working with those who, like himself, turned their backs on formal educational systems.
Prof Henry features in numerous documentaries and current affairs television and radio programmes and has spoken nationally and internationally on behalf of private and public organisations/institutions, and several local councils across the UK. He is also an acclaimed staff trainer, motivational speaker and facilitator for corporations and institutions such as: LinkedIn; Amazon Prime; Sainsbury's; NHS; Crown Prosecution Service; Tate Modern; Tate Britain; Gagosian Gallery; Whitworth Gallery; University of Oxford; University of Cambridge; SOAS; Queens University, Belfast, NI; University of Gothenburg, Sweden; University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica; University of Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa; University of Education, Winneba, Ghana; Yale University, USA; Howard University, USA.
He is a keen martial artist and is a Shodan Black Belt in Kyokushinkai Karate, and is a 4th Degree black Belt, Senior Instructor in Hug Kuen, 5 Animals, Shaolin Kung.