Black Britain: A Photographic History

People of African and Caribbean descent have inhabited Great Britain for centuries. This living visual history of their social life in the modern British Isles includes the rise and commercial circulation of black culture and music, the world wars, the Manchester Pan African Congress, the historic settlement of the Windrush generation and the riots of the 1980s. Luminaries drawn from politics, art and sport appear alongside many pioneers: the first Jamaican immigrant to Brixton, London's first 'Caribbean Carnival', the first black publican and the first female plumber. Just as important are the everyday experiences and anonymous faces. The ordinary lives of people captured here vividly document the country’s difficult and unfinished process of becoming postcolonial.