Celebrities hand over Instagram accounts to Black women for UK Black History Month

London(CNN Business) Influential Black women are taking over the Instagram accounts of their White counterparts on Thursday to mark the beginning of the UK's Black History Month.

Share the Mic UK aims to magnify Black women's work, lives and achievements by bringing together more than 70 women with a combined Instagram following of more than 175 million, according to a post on the campaign's verified Instagram account.

Booker Prize winning author Bernardine Evaristo will take over CNN's chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour's account, while broadcaster June Sarpong will be posting to singer and fashion designer Victoria Beckham's 28.7 million followers.

Academic and author Emma Dabiri is pairing up with actor and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow, while Kenya Hunt, fashion director at Grazia UK magazine, will take over model and fashion designer Alexa Chung's account.

"The voices of Black women have gone unheard and their incredible works and great success has been unseen by many," reads a post from the campaign account. "This needs to change. We want to magnify Black women and their experiences."

The initiative — which uses the hashtags #ShareTheMicUK and #ShareTheMicNow — follows the success of the US-based Share the Mic Now campaign which ran in June.

It is organized by Vanessa Kingori, publishing director at British Vogue magazine, and Stephanie Phair, an executive at fashion brand Farfetch and chair of the British Fashion Council.

Kingori said that she had found a ray of hope in the challenges and tragedies of this year.

"Never in my life have I had and witnessed more meaningful, honest discussions about racial disparity," she said in an Instagram post.

"This has to be just the beginning."

The Instagram takeover comes at the beginning of a month of events celebrating Black History Month in the United Kingdom.

Racial disparities have been thrust into the limelight this year following the death of George Floyd in May, which sparked global protests and led many countries — and companies — to reassess their relationship with race.