Chris Mullard's Black Britain

One of the first books published by a Black writer, born and raised in the UK, was Chris Mullard's Black Britain. Mullard was born in Hampshire in 1946, but moved to Newcastle, where he studied, worked on the buses and later for the Community Relations Commission. In 1967, Mullard established an office at his home on Tyneside and bought a typewriter. He acted as a one-man lobbying organisation.

The following year, the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination organised one of the North East's first marches against racism. In Birmingham, Enoch Powell was making speeches pitting white people against black, but in Newcastle, anti-racists determined that the region remained united. A demonstration was called, from Elswick Road to Town Moor. Around two hundred people took part. Jimmy Murray, the union convenor from Vickers Armstrong, spoke from the platform.

When it appeared, in 1973, Mullard's book Black Britain spoke for a second generation of black people – no longer immigrants – but people who had been born and always lived in Britain. 'At long last', he wrote, 'we are beginning to reject the white myths about ourselves - we are not lazy; we do not live off the dole; we do not breed like rabbits; we are not the cause of this country's social and political problems; we do not smell; we do not bring down house values; we are not maladjusted; we are not educationally sub-normal; and emphatically we are not inferior or ugly.

'Our habits, customs and values are just as civilised as anybody else's. We are beautiful. We are just as intelligent as others. We are industrious. We possess a sense of morality. The work we do is of vital importance to society. We are proud.'