Lanre Bakare We Were There : How Black culture, resistance & community shaped

We Were There is about a Black Britain that for too long has been unknown and unexplored the one that exists beyond London. AN OBSERVER, GQ AND INEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEARA vital corrective that enhances our understanding of black British history STEVE MCQUEENFrom the late 1970s to the early 1990s Britain was in tumult rocked by Margaret Thatchers radical economic policy, the rise of the National Front, widespread civil unrest. With antiimmigration policies in the political mainstream, Black lives were on the frontline of a racial reckoning. But it was also a time of unrivalled Black cultural creation, organising and resistance. This was the crucible in which modern Britain came into existence. We Were There brings into the spotlight for the first time extraordinary Black lives in oncerich cities now home to failing industries the foundries of Birmingham, the docks of Liverpool and Cardiff, the mills of Bradford. We are in Wigan, Wolverhampton, Manchester and the green expanse of the British countryside. We meet feminists and Rastafarians, academics and panAfricanists, environmental campaigners and rugbyleague superstars witness landmark campaigns against miscarriages of justice encounter radical groups of artists and pioneering thinkers tread dancefloors that hosted Northern Soul allnighters and the birth of Acid House. Together, these voices and stories rewrite our idea of Black British culture. London was only ever part of the picture We Were There is about... | Lanre Bakare We Were There : How Black culture, resistance & community shaped