Product Description
We Were There
Author(s): Lanre Bakare
Format: Paperback
How Black culture, resistance and community shaped modern Britain
This is the story of a hidden Britain. A Black Britain. One that existed outside London and forces us to reappraise what it means to be British.
'A vital corrective' STEVE MCQUEEN
'A revelation' NESRINE MALIK
'Necessary and urgent' GUARDIAN
'Joyous' GQ
**An Observer, Gq Magazine, Esquire and Inews Best Book of the Year**
Rocked by economic turmoil, the rise of the National Front, heavy-handed anti-immigration policies and widespread civil unrest, Thatcher's Britain was in tumult. And yet, all around this nation, Black creativity, community and resistance flourished like never before.
From Bradford's towering mills and Northern Soul's euphoric dance floors to the multicultural docks of Cardiff Bay and rolling hills of rural Britain, from Rastafarians and rugby stars to artists and activists, Lanre Bakare unearths the overlooked places and people who made Britain what it is today.
Alive with energy and purpose, We Were There is a dazzling, profoundly important new portrait of modern Britain and a shared legacy which belongs to us all.
'Genuinely pioneering and transformative' DAVID KYNASTON
'An incisive book at an important time' GARY YOUNGE
'Vivid, well-written, bracingly readable ... an excellent book' SPECTATOR
About the Author
Lanre Bakare is the arts and culture correspondent for the Guardian, where his writing focuses on the intersection of art, race and culture across multiple disciplines. He was senior correspondent on the Cotton Capital project – an exposé on the Guardian’s founders’ links to transatlantic slavery and was recognised at the Press Awards as a ‘breathtakingly honest mea culpa’. He was born and grew up in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
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