It started here
Westminster's Black queer history includes one of our own proudest nights — and it reaches back further than we knew, to a bandleader who died on a Westminster stage.
Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson, born in British Guiana, led the West Indian Orchestra — Britain's most popular Black swing band — through a nightly residency at the Café de Paris on Coventry Street, off Piccadilly Circus. He lived in Belgravia, at 91 Kinnerton Street, with his partner Gerald Hamilton. On the night of 8 March 1941, mid-performance, the club took a direct hit in the Blitz, and Johnson was killed along with members of his band. He had made a whole country dance to a Black, gay bandleader without most of them ever knowing his name for what it was.
Pride in London's parade runs through Westminster every year, past Trafalgar Square and Whitehall. Black queer organising has been inside that history for two decades: in 2005, 'Proud to B ME' brought Black and minority ethnic Pride communities together, with an after-party at the Pitcher and Piano on William IV Street, by Trafalgar Square. By 2008, the Black Gay Men's Advisory Group (BGMAG) — chaired by our founder Rob Berkeley — was negotiating directly with Pride London over funding for Black and BME floats and a dedicated BME stage.
On 15 February 2019, BLKOUT presented the inaugural Berto Pasuka Lecture at the National Portrait Gallery — sold out, part of LGBT History Month. Berto Pasuka, born Wilbert Passerley in Jamaica in 1911, moved to London and co-founded Les Ballets Nègres in 1946 with Richie Riley — Britain's first Black-led dance company. David McAlmont gave the lecture, 'Portrait of a Black Queer Briton', in five acts set to two centuries of music by Black composers. It was built as the first in a series, and it remains a genuine high point of our own record in this borough.
A year earlier, in April 2018, Let's Talk: Black Boy Joy ran downstairs at Ku Bar, Leicester Square, in association with BLKOUT and 56 Dean Street — an open-mic night by and for queer people of colour, with Marc Thompson among the speakers. Black queer London has moved through Soho in other ways too: our own archive carries a 2018 profile of Jay Jay Revlon, the ballroom scene builder behind English Breakfast and the House of Revlon, and a mention of a 2016 vogue battle held as a vigil in Soho Square. In 2025 the council's own archive started platforming Black queer artists through events like Black, Queer & Young.
Most recently: a Black-owned queer venue called COVEN, which started in Hackney Wick, opened its Soho headquarters — bar, café, community hub and five-floor club — at 30 Old Compton Street on 19 June 2026, on the former G-A-Y Bar site. Full details are in the directory below. If you were at the Gallery in 2019, in that room at Ku Bar in 2018, on a BME float, or you know a chapter we've missed, the panel further down is where you tell us.
The 2021 Census recorded 8.1% of Westminster's population — around 16,500 people — as Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African, up from 7.5% in 2011. Westminster doesn't rank among London's ten largest Black populations, so we don't have a dossier figure for it — but applying the same estimate we use elsewhere, that's roughly 350 to 550 Black queer men living in the borough right now. Small as a share of one of London's most international boroughs. Still thousands of us.
Here in Westminster
What's organised in the borough for Black queer men and Black LGBTQ+ people, as we find it — and help us find more.
Nothing is listed in Westminster right now beyond the directory below — checked 31 August 2026. That's a report, not a silence. The door below is always open.
In the directory — BLKOUT in Westminster
- COVEN (Headquarters, Old Compton Street) — Black-owned bar, café, community hub and five-floor queer club on Old Compton Street — opened June 2026
From the BLKOUT Places directory — every entry checked for activity in the last year.
Gatherings across London — the BLKOUT events calendar
Fewer and truer: what's actually on for Black queer London, checked by people, never padded.
Beside us in the borough
Neighbours doing good work in Westminster. Use them — and tell them we sent you.
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Westminster City Archives — LGBTQ+ heritage programme
The council archive's growing LGBTQ+ collections and public talks — including, in 2025, a Black, Queer & Young event platforming Black queer artists alongside the Westminster Youth Foundation.
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Worth the journey
Black queer men have never let a borough boundary decide where community happens. Where you're centred, not just welcome:
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Black Beetle Health
The UK's only public health charity focused specifically on health inequalities for LGBTQ+ Black people and people of colour — resources, research and signposting, reachable from anywhere.
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Look after yourself
Free, confidential, no GP needed, no judgement — and your business stays yours.
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Sexual Health London (SHL)
Free, discreet home test kits and PrEP by post anywhere in London — order online, nothing to explain to anyone.
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56 Dean Street
Soho's LGBTQ+ specialist sexual health and HIV service — Europe's largest, seeing around 11,000 visitors a month, most of them gay and bisexual men. Right here in the borough.
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Naz Project London
Sexual health, HIV support and wellbeing for Black, Global Majority and LGBTQ+ communities, working across Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham.
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Find your nearest NHS clinic
Every NHS sexual health service near you — testing, treatment, PrEP — searchable by postcode.
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Next door
The doors are opening borough by borough. Step through, or help us open the next one.
Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2025. Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2025.
550
Your guess stays in this browser.
One dot for every Black queer man the census estimate puts in Westminster — between 350 and 550 of us.
| Borough | Black residents (2021) | Black queer men (est.) |
|---|---|---|
| Croydon | 88,500 | 2,000–2,800 |
| Newham | 88,200 | 2,000–2,700 |
| Lewisham | 81,900 | 1,800–2,600 |
| Southwark | 80,100 | 1,800–2,500 |
| Lambeth | 76,100 | 1,700–2,400 |
| Brent | 62,500 | 1,400–2,000 |
| Hackney | 59,300 | 1,300–1,900 |
| Enfield | 58,200 | 1,300–1,800 |
| Haringey | 52,400 | 1,200–1,700 |
| Waltham Forest | 46,700 | 1,000–1,500 |
2021 Census analysis — Who Are the UK's Black Queer Men? (BLKOUT's Critical Frequency dossier)
Nobody keeps this number. Not the council, not the NHS, not the people who commission work in this borough. The estimate is ours, built from the 2021 Census, because a population nobody counts is a population nobody plans for.
Know your Westminster?
Three questions. No prizes except the stories.
01 In February 2019, BLKOUT presented the inaugural Berto Pasuka Lecture at which Westminster institution?
The National Portrait Gallery — a sold-out night, 'Portrait of a Black Queer Briton', given by David McAlmont in honour of Berto Pasuka, the Jamaican-born dancer who co-founded Les Ballets Nègres, Britain's first Black-led dance company.
02 In April 2018, 'Let's Talk: Black Boy Joy' ran in association with BLKOUT at which Soho venue?
Ku Bar, Leicester Square — an open-mic night by and for queer people of colour, run with 56 Dean Street, with Marc Thompson among the speakers. Genuinely our own history in this borough.
03 In March 1941, which gay Black British bandleader was killed when the Café de Paris was bombed mid-performance?
Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson — leader of Britain's most popular Black swing band, the West Indian Orchestra, resident at the Café de Paris on Coventry Street. He lived with his partner Gerald Hamilton at 91 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia. He died on stage on 8 March 1941, one of the best-loved bandleaders in the country.
Reading the borough
Westminster's Black queer record runs through Soho's nightlife, the National Portrait Gallery, a bombed nightclub, and two decades of Pride in London itself. Start with these, and tell us what belongs on the shelf.
- Ken "Snakehips" Johnson — Wikipedia / National Portrait Gallery, ongoing. On the bandleader's life, his home with Gerald Hamilton in Belgravia, and his death at the Café de Paris, 8 March 1941.
- Remembering Pasuka; celebrating us — BLKOUT_UK, 2019. Our own account of the inaugural Berto Pasuka Lecture at the National Portrait Gallery, given by David McAlmont — a fuller history of Berto Pasuka and BGMAG's Pride in London years is being prepared for our Voices heritage series.
- Let's Talk: Black Boy Joy — In association with BLKOUT and 56 Dean Street, 2018. An open-mic night by and for queer people of colour at Ku Bar, Soho — Marc Thompson was among the speakers. From our own social archive, 26 April 2018.
- BLACKGAYSLAY: Jay Jay Revlon Giving Light — BLKOUT_UK, 2018. Our own profile of the ballroom scene builder behind English Breakfast and the House of Revlon — and a mention of the 2016 Soho vigil vogue battle.
- A History of Soho's LGBTQ+ Bars — Londonist, ongoing. How Soho became — and stayed — London's queer centre of gravity from the 1990s on.
- How life has changed in Westminster: Census 2021 — Office for National Statistics, 2022. The borough's own ethnicity breakdown, area by area. View the data
From the BLKOUT archive
Westminster runs through our own writing and our own nights out — Let's Talk: Black Boy Joy at Ku Bar in 2018, and a ballroom-scene profile carrying a Soho vigil. Those pieces are in the story archive and being brought back online; when they are, they'll be listed here.
Browse the story archiveAsked, answered
Where can I meet other Black queer men in Westminster?
Start with the door on this page — you'll hear about everything as it happens. COVEN's new Soho headquarters is in the directory below, and BLKOUT's national community is open to you today. If a few Westminster men want a table in the borough, we'll help hold it.
Where can I get an STI test or PrEP in Westminster?
Sexual Health London posts free test kits and PrEP to any London address, no GP and no conversation required. 56 Dean Street is right here in Soho, and Naz Project London covers the borough for wider sexual health and wellbeing support.
Is BLKOUT a Westminster organisation?
BLKOUT is one community-owned co-operative for Black queer men across the UK — with a door in every borough. We're registered in Croydon and we belong wherever our men are. We were part of a night in Soho back in 2018, before this page existed.
I'm not out. Can I still come?
Yes. Come as you are — nobody at this door asks you to be anything first, and your business stays yours.
Is the history on this page accurate?
It's checked against the public record and dated so you can see when we last looked. If we've got something wrong — or missed a chapter you were part of — the panel at the bottom is where you tell us, and the page changes.
Be met
Come as you are. We answer.
Leave your name and we'll keep you posted about Westminster — what's on, what's starting, and how to be part of it. This goes to BLKOUT, a co-operative owned by its members. No engagement machinery, nothing sold onward — just a community that answers.
Step inside
The door is how we find each other. BLKOUTHUB is where we live.
The members' room: Black queer men across the UK, owned by the men in it. Why knock:
- Real connection. Nearly four in five members say they came to find it — and found it.
- No algorithm, no ads, nothing sold onward. A room that doesn't monetise you. Your attention is yours; we're after your company.
- Where things actually start. Occasions, groups, and the knowledge that never gets written down — passed man to man, the way it always has been.
- Owned by us. A co-operative with an asset lock: what we build together stays ours, and passes to the men who come after.
And don't just read about AIvor — talk with him. Our own voice, named for the man whose name is over every door. Ask him about BLKOUT, about Black queer life, about Westminster — he answers.
Talk with AIvor nowMake it truer
We've found one night that was genuinely ours — and the people here know the rest of this borough's story best. If a group has folded, a night has moved, or we've missed a chapter you were part of — tell us. Corrections get credited, if you want the credit.
If you work here
This page is for Black queer men first. But if you serve this borough — NHS, social prescribing, council, community sector, creative health, or you run a room — there's a door for you too.
- Refer. Supporting a Black queer man who could use his people? Send him this page — that is a referral, and every knock gets answered by a human.
- Commission or partner. Working on Black queer men's health, culture or connection in Westminster? We're the community-owned, by-and-for partner — and the evidence base is already on this page. Write to rob@blkoutuk.com.
- List us. Maintain a directory, a support page, a signposting service? Our entry, ready to paste:
BLKOUT — the UK's community-owned co-operative for Black queer men. In your neighbourhood: https://events.blkoutuk.com/westminster/ · blkoutuk.com · rob@blkoutuk.com - Run a room. A venue, night or group our men should know about? Tell us — the page gets truer, and it points at you.
We list our neighbours and our neighbours list us. That's how a borough works.