As I was originally writing on issues of police violence and deaths in police custody, as well as black activism in East London, I decided to visit the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. I searched on their website for the texts I would need, made a list and then made contact with the archive via email. I had correspondence with their employee Emma from the Collections Team. She was immensely helpful and organised for all of the texts I had requested to be in the reading room on 4th November.

When I arrived at the archive I signed in and went to the reading room, where everything had been set aside for me. I found the material fascinating, even though it wasn’t all relevant to the research I was doing, and in fact had requested so much that I didn’t have time to go through it all. I looked at many of Stella Dadzie’s contributions to the archives, many of which were handwritten, which I found very intriguing. I also saw collections of newspaper articles about the BNP in Walthamstow, which definitely contributed to my research.

Sarah Brooke

Photo: Mark Longair