Lanre Bakare: We Were There
- Date
-
Thu 1 May 2025
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
- Venue
- Showroom Workstation, Creative Lounge
We Were There is about a Black Britain that for too long has been unknown and unexplored – the one that exists beyond London. From the late 1970s to the early 1990s Britain was in tumult: rocked by Margaret Thatcher’s radical economic policy, the rise of the National Front, widespread civil unrest. With anti-immigration 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 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 rugby-league superstars; witness landmark campaigns and encounter radical artists and thinkers; tread dancefloors that hosted Northern Soul all-nighters and the birth of Acid House.
London was only ever part of the picture. Join Sheffield writer and broadcaster Désirée Reynolds for a conversation with the book's author Lanre Bakare, who will set out a compelling portrait of modern Britain that weaves Black stories far away from the capital into our national narrative.
If you have any questions regarding accessibility for this event, please feel free to contact us at [email protected].
Lanre Bakare was born and grew up in Bradford, West Yorkshire. He is a correspondent covering arts and culture for the Guardian where his writing focuses on the intersection of art, race and culture across multiple disciplines. He was senior correspondent on the award-winning Cotton Capital project, and has worked in New York and Los Angeles as part of the Guardian US team. His debut non-fiction book We Were There will be published by The Bodley Head in April 2025.
Désirée Reynolds, (she/her) a South Londoner up North, was brought up in Clapham, London to Jamaican parents and now lives in Sheffield. She started her writing career as a freelance journalist for the Jamaica Gleaner and the Village Voice. She has gone on to write film scripts, poetry, flash fiction and short stories.
Her first novel, Seduce, was published in 2013 by Peepal Tree Press to much acclaim. Her fiction is concerned with working class Black women, internal landscapes and a continuous struggle against the white, male gaze, notions of beauty, race and being. Committed to anti racism and intersectionality, she draws on her experiences of these to make her creative work. Her short stories have been widely published in various publications and online.
She has been on numerous panels, radio and given talks about literature, film, race and gender and continues to work as a writer, editor, journalist, broadcaster and creative writing facilitator.
