The Guardian journalist Lanre Bakare travels to Manchester, the city where the Guardian newspaper was founded, to learn more about Black Mancunian history.
He hears from Hakim Adi, a professor of history at the University of Chichester, about the 1945 Pan-African Congress in the city. This historic event would come to shape the independence movements across Africa – but despite its critical importance, many feel it remains largely forgotten.
Lanre meets Dr Diane Watt and Prof Gus John, who tell him about their decades-long activism within the Black community. He also talks to Irvine Williams, the operational manager of Hideaway, a youth centre in Moss Side that has been working with young people for more than 50 years.
This podcast is episode five in a six-part series for the Cotton Capital project, which is looking at the Guardian’s links to transatlantic slavery and the legacies of that history. It takes listeners from Manchester to Jamaica, the US, Nigeria and Brazil and back to the UK.
To subscribe to the series, search for Cotton Capital wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes will launch every Monday.
Host: Lanre Bakare
Guests: Prof Hakim Adi, Dr Diane Watt, Prof Gus John and Irvine Williams
Series producer: Courtney Yusuf
Producer: Silas Gray
Consultant executive producer: Colin Stone
Historical consultant: Dr Kerry Pimblott
Original music: Melo-Zed
Sound design: Max Sanderson
Development series producer: Tej Adeleye
Development producers: Weyland McKenzie-Witter and Fatuma Khaireh
Commissioning editors: Nicole Jackson and Maya Wolfe-Robinson
With thanks to: Mea Aitken and Kids of Colour, Dr Charisse Burden-Stelly, Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper and Venessa Scott
Illustration: Mark Harris/The Guardian
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