Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A fascinating account of the growth of the black community in Britain over the past centuries."--Guardian

"For this retrieval of the lost histories of black Britain, Mr. Fryer has my deep gratitude. An invaluable book."--Salman Rushdie

Staying Power is a panoramic history of black Britons. First published in 1984 amid race riots and police brutality, Fryer's history performed a deeply political act, revealing how Africans, Asians, and their descendants had been erased from British history.

Stretching back to the Roman conquest, encompassing the court of Henry VIII, and following a host of characters from the pioneering nurse and war hero Mary Seacole to the abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, Peter Fryer paints a picture of two thousand years of black presence in Britain. By rewriting black Britons into British history, showing where they influenced political traditions, social institutions, and cultural life, Chapters include:

*'Those Kinde of People'

*Britain's Slave Ports

*The Black Community Takes Shape

*Eighteenth-Century Voices

*Slavery and the Law

*The Rise of English Racism

*Up from Slavery

*Challenges to Empire

*Under Attack

*The Settlers

*The New Generation

As Fryer writes in his preface, "This however, though peopled to a large extent by Africans, West Indians, Afro-Americans, and Asians, is a history of the black presence in Britain. And it is written, not just for black or just for white readers, but for all who have a serious interest in the subject."

Staying Power presents a radical challenge to racist and nationalist agendas. This edition includes a new foreword by Gary Younge examining the book's continued significance in shaping black British identity today, alongside the now-classic introduction by Paul Gilroy.