We Were There

Author Lanre Bakare
Narrator Oliver Wellington
Publisher Random House
Run Time 10 hours and 24 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Colonialism and imperialism, Popular culture, Racism and racial discrimination, Social and cultural anthropology, Social and cultural history.

Listen to a sample

What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

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 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.

Alive with energy and purpose, We Were There decisively expands our sense of who we are. Confronting, joyful and thrilling, this is a profoundly important new portrait of modern Britain.

© Lanre Bakare 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

We Were There is a vital corrective that enhances our understanding of Black British history in the 20th century by moving the narrative outside of London

Steve McQueen

We Were There is an essential, unique and joyful contribution to the full understanding of Black Britain. It broadens our story and ensures that the scale of our influence across the UK is fully recognised and appreciated. Utterly brilliant

Dipo Faloyin, author of Africa Is Not A Country

An urgent conversation about Britishness and the breadth of Black British experience [that] will take us on affecting and insightful journeys

Arifa Akbar, author of Consumed

Lanre Bakare takes us on a rare journey, rearranging our understanding of Britain’s racial geography with an open mind, perceptive eye and an accessible style. An incisive book at an important time

Gary Younge, author of Dispatches from the Diaspora

Genuinely pioneering and transformative histories only come along rarely, but Lanre Bakare’s wonderfully immersive, wide-ranging account of the years when Black Britian acquired its own agency is undoubtedly such

David Kynaston, author of A Northern Wind

[Lanre Bakare writes] with quiet enthusiasm and sharp intelligence about black communities, including those in Bradford, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff and Edinburgh… We Were There bridges the gaps to missing links and admirably achieves what it sets out to provide: further evidence of “Black people’s influence on the UK”

Observer

Lanre Bakare’s first book is not just a work of history – it is a necessary and urgent recalibration of the way we think about Black Britain… an expansive, deeply researched work that insists on a broader, richer understanding of Black life

Guardian

A revelation of a black history almost lost, a chronicling of a rich black British life outside of London told with such love and tender, evocative prose that it immediately colourises the present. In tracing this history, Bakare offers not just a homage to Black British identity, but a reinforcement of it

Nesrine Malik, author of We Need New Stories

Fascinating. Lanre Bakare’s story is told with pace, wit, scholarship, and nuance. It taught me so much about the city and the country where I live

Ed Caesar

With We Were There, Lanre Bakare provides a vital new chapter in the story of modern Britain. Told with urgency, empathy and a skilled journalist’s ability to connect the dots across race, power and national identity, this is essential reading

Ekow Eshun, author of The Strangers

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