Lanre Bakare - We Were There

We're delighted that arts and culture correspondent Lanre Bakare is coming to the bookshop for an event to celebrate the publication of his book We Were There: How Black culture, resistance and community shaped modern Britain. It's a book about a Black Britain that for too long has been unknown and unexplored – the one that exists beyond London. Bakare will be in conversation with Lisa Williams, founder of the Edinburgh Caribbean Association.

This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home. There will be a signing after the event.

In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of We Were There – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be redeemed on our website against a single copy of We Were There.

About We Were There:

We Were There brings into the spotlight for the first time extraordinary Black lives in once rich 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 pan-Africanists, environmental campaigners, and rugby-league superstars; witness landmark campaigns against miscarriages of justice; encounter radical groups of artists and pioneering thinkers; tread dancefloors that hosted Northern Soul all-nighters 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 incorporating a vastly broader range of Black Britons into the fabric of our national story.