When I think of the first time I saw Black people make space for each other, I think of the hair salon on Trinity Road in Tooting. I used to go to there as a child. I also think of the barber shop my dad would visit that was tucked away within the Battersea estate’s ecosystem.

On a Saturday each month, I’d spend the day watching Black women catch up like old friends while passing packets of hair. I’d read magazines that were far beyond my years and listen to ‘grown women’s talk.’ Or I’d peer in on old men talking football, drinking Supermalt and debating Ghanaian politics.

In many ways, they were reminiscing about the many other lives they had lived before this one. From the outside these spaces looked simple, serving the practical functions of getting your hair done. But in retrospect, these spaces were community building blocks.

Black people in Britain have long created spaces of play, joy, education and survival. The social conditions we live under have made this a necessity. Those spaces might have been in West London’s streets full of West Indian cultures and activism at Notting Hill Carnival. The carnival, of course was spearheaded by Trinidadian writer and activist Claudia Jones in the 1960s.

They could equally be found in the pirate radio stations that were integral to the birth of Grime. Today, collectives across the UK continue the work of spacemaking, and redesigning cities with Black communities at the forefront.

Taking up space in response to oppression

The Britain of the 1970s and 80s saw the rise in popularity of fascist groups like the National Front. Alongside that came an increase in targeted police brutality against Black communities.

If one poem captures the tiredness, perseverance and fight of Black people living in Britain at that time, it’s ‘Inglan Is A Bitch’ by Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ). The poem reads: “Inglan is a bitch / Dere’s no escapin’ it / Inglan is a bitch / Yuh haffi know how fi survive in it.”

During this time, George Lindo was arrested. He was framed for a robbery in Bradford. In response, LKJ wrote ‘It Dread Inna Inglan (For George Lindo).’ The poem also documented his own experiences of police brutality during his time in the British Black Panther Party.

Spaces were organised within Black communities as a direct response to oppressive infrastructures. The organising of collective Black response took many forms. There were radical reading book clubs and artistic spaces dedicated to the works of Black makers in all their authenticity.

A place to call home

If you take a walk down Holloway Road today, you’ll find House of Hammerton. The unassuming pub fits neatly into the ever growing hip aesthetic of North London’s gentrification.

It’s hard to imagine that less than a mile away stood Harambee, a temporarily government-funded housing community project launched in the 1970s. It looked after young Black people who were homeless, unemployed and experiencing hardship.

Set up by West Indian migrant and youth worker Herman Edwards, otherwise known as ‘Brother Herman’, Harambee housed over 50 Black young people in its short lifetime. Fittingly, Harambee means ‘all pull together in Swahili.’

A few years later, you would also find Keskidee Arts Centre, one of the first documented arts centres for Black communities in Britain, founded by Guyanese architect and activist Oscar Abrams.

Keskidee Arts Centre was a hub for African and West Indian arts and politics. It also housed the Keskidee Theatre Workshop, a company dedicated to producing and staging the works of Black artists. Fifty years later, we see remnants of Harambee and Keskidee Arts Centre in spaces across Britain.

Space for community

Brixton’s history of activism and placemaking has been a source of inspiration for some of today’s collectives of Black artists, architects and activists.

Akil Scafe-Smith, co-founder of interdisciplinary design movement, Resolve Collective, isn’t a stranger to creating radical, transformative spaces. His mother, Dr. Suzanne Scafe, was a member of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) and Brixton Black Women’s Group (BWG). Both groups were established in the 1970s.

Based in Canning Town round the corner from now closed pirate radio, Flava FM, Resolve Collective combines art, technology and design.

Akil says: “Often we do these things because that’s the only way we can make space.

“Being in the diaspora and creating space is so intrinsically linked.”

Whether taking over abandoned buildings in Brixton or working with renowned galleries, the collective approaches the city’s physical spaces with care.

“The empty space becomes part of your experience. As much as these empty spaces are opportunities, we also have to be sensitive as to how we use them. We have to be sensitive about who can use them,” he adds.

Space for everyone

In the heart of Brixton Market is Round Table Books, a bookshop dedicated to housing diverse stories.

Aimée Felone, co-founder of publishing company, Knights Of and the Brixton-based bookshop tells me: “We’ve always said we want this space to be for the Brixton community, the young Black British community, the young kids that pass through after school, the mums that are out early on a Saturday morning, the older generation.”

For her, the bookshop is not just about profit. Launched as a temporary pop-up, it permanently opened its doors in 2019.

“There’s one boy that comes in every week and takes off his jacket and looks at the space like it’s his,” she says.

Birmingham and beyond

Birmingham’s rich history of community-led spacemaking has been continued by a new generation of spatial justice activists.

Birmingham-born Amahra Spence is the founder of the Black Land and Spatial Justice Fund. She’s also a pioneer in the redesigning of cities through artistic practices and research.

Her latest intervention, YARD, is an art-house residency space and cultural centre.

She tells me: “We want to create the spirit of our grandparents’ and elders’ homes. There were people and homes and spaces in our communities that held the essence of a place.”

Gentrification is growing throughout Birmingham. The fringes of the city centre are neglected. Black and poor communities are pushed towards the outskirts. Spatial justice work has to address the economic, sociological and cultural imbalances.

It also has to look at the disconnect between the infrastructure of the city and the needs of its residents.

Amahra continues: “Sometimes things are masked as an opportunity and we can become complicit in the un-doing of our communities.

“We always knew we had to get something that was inherently self-sustaining and accessible. Something that’s regenerative, is part of an ecosystem and circular economy. We have to be designing for the generations to come.”

Spaces that never were

For every space that has existed, though perhaps temporary and short-lived, stood the promise of a space that eventually wouldn’t be realised. In the 1980s, talks of a Black Arts Centre which would ‘challenge the institutionalised racism of mainstream arts’ rippled across London.

But the precariousness of funding would force the project to come to a close, despite public interest.

Today, Roundhouse Camden stands in its place. In the early 2000s, we would experience this cycle again. Talawa Theatre Company hoped to host one of the first Black theatre spaces.

Still, projects such as CIVIC SQUARE, Land In Our Names, The Walsall Project and The Legacy Centre of Excellence in Birmingham, Sistah Space, The Black Cultural Archives and the No Signal Broadcasting Studio in London continue the legacy of Black British placemaking in the present day.

The need for spaces where Black Britons can seek community is growing urgently. There is a new generation of Black Britons ready to make their mark. In the words of Linton Kwesi Johnson, “It is noh mistri / Wi mekkin histri / It is noh mistri / Wi winnin victri.”

The Voice’s Bold, Black British Future campaign is sponsored by JN Bank UK – Britain’s first Caribbean-owned digital bank.